Spice of Life

Hardworking vs Smart Some animated conversation was going on in my kitchen,where the austere bay leaf was imparting a lesson, « A spice should be …

Spice of Life

The Old House

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Vàng A Giang
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

The Old House

 

I want to return to The Old House

Recuperate like an injured wild animal

Allow the birdsongs to patch up the days torn apart

Listen to the chameleon’s lullabies for the rocks from the origin…

 

The Old House – wrapped in grey stone

As grey as my face, the winter night I dropped in my mother’s womb

The Old house – wrapped in rocks

Overflowing with memories, memories fossilised in trees

 

I want to return to The Old House – where I had everything

My father’s sharp words

My mother’s words of affection

The children’s laughter

The intimacy of a village 

 

I want to return to The Old House

To greet and thank all that had faded with time

Discern the…

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A view rounded & framed

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Lê Nhi
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A view rounded & framed 

 

for so long I have not written a poem

the starving vernacular

the tired and old poetic prose

my heart is unencumbered and free

 

to write about my mother’s visit

the clutter of peanuts and other root consumables

even a chicken dream of calling upon an oblivious dawn

gave all she could to her children

 

my mother’s eyes bleary in each uneven step through the awakening city

the alarming gongs of anxiety

                         in the hurried dying light

her son’s hair now peppered with grey

though could not pictured himself steeped in the smoke of home

 

to write about my father is like the return of a sudden teardrop!

drifting away in a far off land

 

the night orphaned at the…

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Jedes Leben ist heilig … Every life is sacred — Stella, oh, Stella

Foto Wikepedia, Albert Schweitzer 1955 »Mit allem, was lebt, sind wir durch Wesensverwandtschaft und Schicksalsgemeinschaft verbunden.« »Dem Menschen, der zur Ethik der Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben gelangt ist, ist jedes Leben als solches heilig. »Die Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, zu der wir Menschen gelangen müssen, begreift alles in sich, was als Liebe, Hingebung, Mitleiden, Mitfreude, […]

Jedes Leben ist heilig … Every life is sacred — Stella, oh, Stella

An Indigenous reservation has a novel way to grow food – below the earth’s surface | Native Americans | The Guardian

Those underground on the reservation use geothermal energy to keep a stable year-round temperature of about 52F, and some use a series of tubes that capture and circulate heat from deeper underground. At the same time, the greenhouses absorb and bank heat from the sun. Source: An Indigenous reservation has a novel way to grow food – below the earth’s surface | Native Americans | The Guardian