Cao Xuân Tu

Stars

For my daughter Cẩm Tú

The high house gasps
For a breath of night
Laced with mint and jasmine
That send the drunken stars
Staggering off, swinging.
Over the garden wall
Climbers grope mid-air
For an anchoring. A bored
Cricket screams, switching
Lovers' sighs to long yawns.
And I, like a creeper, crawl
Back to another time,
A child's summer night
Crusted with stars whereunder
My mother washes a lullaby
Over the betel-red mouths
Of anonymous rivers.
And father, home and unscarred
From fratricidal wars.
Skylarking like a boy.
The enemy calls a truce,
He cries, and tosses me
Above the fence swarming
With fireflies, bright
And blinking as the stars
On my own child's eyes,
That tremble and melt
As I touch and fall.

Cao Xuân Tu