Nha Tho Tinh Yeu
Vietnamese love poetry — the language of water, lotus, and longing.
Nha Tho Tinh Yeu
Vietnamese Love Poetry — the language of water, lotus, and longing. In a culture where feelings are held close, poetry becomes the place where the heart speaks freely.
Yeu — Xuan Dieu
Yeu la chet o trong long mot it
Vi may khi yeu ma chac duoc yeu
Cho rat nhieu song nhan chang bao nhieu
Nguoi ta phu hoac tho o chang biet.Nhung ma yeu! Yeu van cu la yeu!
Nhu song nuoc vo hoai tren ghenh da,
Van thuong yeu cho den phut cuoi cung.
To love is to die a little inside, for how often can we be certain our love is returned? We give so much, yet receive so little. But to love! To love is still to love! Like waves crashing endlessly upon the shore — we love until the very last moment.
Xuan Dieu — the prince of Vietnamese romantic poetry — understood something that Western poets often miss. Love is not a transaction. You do not love to be loved back. You love because the alternative is unbearable.
The wave does not crash against the shore expecting the shore to crash back. It crashes because that is what waves do. And so do hearts.
Tuong Tu — Nguyen Binh
Thon Doai ngoi nho thon Dong,
Mot nguoi chin nho muoi mong mot nguoi.
Gio mua la benh cua gioi,
Tuong tu la benh cua toi yeu nang.
From the western village, I sit longing for the eastern one. One heart aches with every kind of yearning for another. Rain and wind are the ailments of the sky. Longing is the ailment of my love for you.
Nguyen Binh wrote in the language of Vietnamese countryside — of villages separated by rice paddies, of lovers separated by nothing more than a few kilometers and everything more than a few kilometers.
"Longing is the ailment of my love for you." In Vietnamese culture, longing (tuong tu) is not a weakness. It is a condition. Like weather. Like gravity. Something that happens to you because the world is structured in a way that sometimes puts distance between hearts that belong together.
Doi Anh Ve — Huu Loan
Em oi doi anh ve
Doi anh hoai em nhe
Mua roi pho day
Em oi em doi
Tinh dau nhu trang soi
Yeu em mai mai thoi.
My love, wait for me to return. Wait for me always, my dear. The rain fills the streets. My love, please wait. First love shines like moonlight. I love you forever and always.
The simplest words carry the heaviest weight. "Wait for me" is not a command. It is a prayer. It says: I am coming back. Please believe that I am coming back. Please let your belief be stronger than the rain that fills the streets between us.
Huu Loan wrote from a Vietnam where waiting was not a metaphor. Where "come back" was spoken to soldiers, to travelers, to anyone who stepped beyond the visible horizon. And yet the poem transcends its context completely. Because everywhere in the world, someone is asking someone to wait. And someone is choosing to.
In Vietnamese, the word for "missing someone" — nho — is the same word for "remember." To miss someone is to remember them. And to remember is to keep them alive inside you, no matter the distance.