Who Am I?
(by Thong Ba Le)

Tears blur my eyes in the moonlit night,
as two shooting stars go flashing by
like the ones I saw thirty seven years ago,
aboard a fishing boat carrying people as cargo.

I came here with empty hands.
I traveled along lakes, beaches and riverbanks,
across green meadows of this vast country
watching sunsets and sunrises from the horizon at sea.
I wandered through forests, jungles, over mountaintops,
as drenched leaves, heavy with raindrops
wetting everything underneath, strain
and twist and undulate like a soul in pain,
dripping tears, as the keening wind blows
and carries away memories as they flow.
I wondered, then had only began to know,
my kind of pain that endured
and I was too full of sorrows,
awakening in many night, waiting for tomorrow,
thinking of what must be done for my future.
There were times when remembering
of the past would have not enough.
Times my restless spirit need an ocean for inspiring
not the river serene and simple as such.
My soul is still longing for the old country
that dominated by skeletons, ghosts and memory
by a war after another war,
and that pain always stays with me.
I worship in my sadness; I pray for
some goodness, happiness and more.

Who am I? A castle built in the sand?
A ghost of the past? A lost memory bank?
The shadow of my life follows me always
and finally sets me free in the wonder land far away./.


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