James Banerian

Having Lost Everything,
There Is Only Each Other


We let slip from our hands the first half of life.
The last half still lies ahead.
Our two halves combine to make one.
Added up, it comes to an eternity together.

I have strayed to a distant, foreign land
Where I do not feel at home in a crowd.
Forsaken during your dream youth,
The day you married, you cried, didn’t you?

Like a river split into two branches,
The heart retains the first fresh essence.
To have a dream once, through a small one,
To have you living by me - living and dying
would be all the same.

Who knew life would bring
so many drastic changes.
Time raced by, our hair turned gray,
We will find our way back
when the moon falls to the earth.
Having lost everything, there is only each other…..

Translate by James Banerian
Original Title Chúng Mình Mất Hết, Chỉ Còn Nhau

Yellow Summer Dress


You passed by, your shadow spilling
across the porch outside.
A flock of tiny magpies
exploded toward farther reaches.
Startled, summer tumbled down
unhindered all about.
Blossoming in the arbor of your hair
were yellow petals.

Sunlight clear and pure seeped through
the panels of your gown.
Your dress was so fine and filmy
that my heart stammered.
Though it was but
a fleeting moment,
I heard summer daintily trip
across taut-stringed frets.

When you, hair hanging loose,
made your way across,
Rows of trees tipped their hats
in a flurry of farewells.
You took the summer with you
across the bridge.
I, like a stranger, searched
everywhere for my shadow.

Where life has brought you now,
the sunshine shimmers.
And you must cover up that bit
of faded love.
Sentiments remain for that corner
of the street in our hometown.
Yellow for you in the dress and summer,
sadness for me in the rain returning...


Translate by James Banerian
Original Title Áo Hạ Vàng

Hair Across a Lifetime


A poem written early in life
is left unfinished,
As I have forgotten on which side
your hair is parted.
We seek each other along faded tracks
of days past.
Ere the moon was full I did not learn
how you part your hair.

Rather to live instinctively
like leaves,
Sad or happy, turned up or down,
they remain together.
To keep myself from biting my lip
and drawing blood,
I call your name frantically
in my dreams.

Can you count how many times
the cotton tree blossomed?
That’s how long your hair has grown out,
trailing longer,
Transforming to a stream that draws me
out to the sea,
Where the waves across life wash over,
dampening your eyes.

Where you may be, moon drifting
to some shore,
Whatever way you’ve taken, which way
your shadow falls,
I tend downward toward a sadness
spreading out branches.
A poem continued in later life…


Translate by James Banerian
Original Title Mái Tóc Ngang Đời

Thank You, Dear,
Last Lover


Thank you, dear,
for being the shadow
in which I might hide all my life.
Thank you, night.
Though yet in darkness,
how could I ever forget you?

Heart whispering,
piercing ache,
a life spent urgently seeking each other.
Thank you , dear,
my last lover,
for letting me know first love.

You are the night
in which I find sanctuary.
There the wound seems to have healed.
You are the knife.
I ooze blood.
Even now the cut remains intact.

That you may have a apart
in the remnants,
I give you an even share of me.
All the lovers I’ve known
still weep,
sharing tears they shed,
lonely….


Translate by James Banerian
Original Title Cảm Ơn Em, Người Tình Cuối

Coffee of Life


I was a drop of bitter coffee.
You a grain of sugar unspoiled.
With my spoon I stirred along
the bottom of the cup,
Trying to mingle our love forever.

I wander to the end of the street,
Counting the raindrops passing by,
Counting the sorrows I have still.
Do you ache as often as I?

The drop of coffee, sharp and bitter,
Rolls on pale lips,
The sugar was not yet diluted.
When so quickly we lost each other.

On the far side of the ocean,
Your sweetness spreads ever outward.
Each afternoon, I go to a café,
As I sip, I take in each welling tear …


Translate by James Banerian
Original Title Cà Phê Đời