Tell me of your delight
The wisp of wind
That catches your hair
Breezy enough to sense
The winds direction
To which you set your sails
Moving through glass water
Unwilling to break

Tell me of your delight
In the shell of a snail
Digging up its squishy life
For just you alone
Thumbing through
In a smile and a jar of joy
Enough to break a mother's heart
With every win and loss
On your way to manhood

Tell me of your delight
As you swing in the air
Legs kicking as branches do
When the air picks you up
No longer weighing you down
All cares wash through
The space of regrets
And deposit themselves
As pebbles on the shore
Where your feet will land

Tell me of your delight
Where the garden snake
Attempts to outwit
Your stride in the grass
As you quietly watch
With patience of a lifetime
That marches ahead in this stillness
That is between the distance
Where now is forever
In your hand you swoop up
A life trying to escape yours
Gleeful are you as you set
The creature free once more

Tell me of your delight
As you see the rays of a day
Shine on every stone
And drop of rain
Washing rivers deleting cares
Surpassing a mother's gloom
Her soup of ingredients
Marinated longer than your
Innocence wants to keep birthing
It will be her death that it takes
To be released and unburdened
So you can breathe again this day
Heart open to drown all sorrows
Brand new as the dew

this morning I’ve already done the thing where my brain attacks itself and starts to wish things upon myself that would keep me from having to be a human,
or I start to pine to just be a snail,
a slimy, low to the ground, nothing to do,
snail,
I’d be green and I would take my time, scooting along munching on a leaf as I passed it by,
being spineless may feel weightless, I bet my back wouldn’t hurt,
maybe I would take a nap in the sun and then die and not even know

** Xuan Huong English Translations by Michael R. Burch

** Xuan Huong (1772-1882) was a risqué Vietnamese poetess. Her verse, replete with nods, winks, ****** innuendo and a rich eroticism, was shocking to many readers of her day and will probably remain so to some of ours. Huong has been described as "the candid voice of a liberal female in a male-dominated society." Her output has been called "coy, often ***** lyrics." I would add "suggestive to graphic." More information about this provocative poet follows these modern English translations of her poems.

Ốc Nhồi  ("The Snail")
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My parents produced a snail,
Night and day it slithers through slimy grass.
If you love me, remove my shell,
But please don't jiggle my little hole!

The Breadfruit or Jackfruit
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My body's like a breadfruit ripening on a tree:
My skin coarse, my pulp thick.
My lord, if you want me, pierce me with your stick,
But please don't squeeze or the sap will sully your fingers!

Bánh trôi nước ("Floating Sweet Dumpling")
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My powdered body is white and round.
Now I bob. Now I sink.
The hand that kneads me may be rough,
But my heart at the center remains untouched.

The Cake That Drifts In Water
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was born virginal and beautiful,
Yet my life's been full of struggles.
My fate rests entirely in the hands of the elites.
Yet still I shall keep my heart pure.

Ode to a Paper Fan
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

One ring receptive enough for any rod,
Coyly alluring since ancient times…
Your employment is to cool down sweating heroes,
To cover gentlemen’s heads whenever it rains.
Behind the bed-curtain, let’s tenderly ask him:
Panting like a dog in heat, are you satisfied?

***** You!
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

***** the rule that makes you share a man!
You slave like maids but without pay.

Unplanned Pregnancy
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My yielding resulted in this chaos;
Who can understand my anguish? …
However, this love-load I’ll soon be lugging,
Despite the world’s condemnation
(To have child, without a husband)
Is a an exceptional feat!

The Unfortunate Plight of Women
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hey sisters, do you know?
The baby bawls at your breast
While your husband slides onto your stomach.
Both demanding your attention,
Both endlessly tugging.
All must be put in order.
“Hurry up with the flowers!”
Such are the demands of husbands and children.
Hey sisters, do you know?

Questions for the Moon
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How many eons have you been there,
Endlessly transposing from slender to pregnant? …
Why do you orbit, aloof, the loneliness of night,
yet blush — so pale! — when seen by the sun?
Awake, long past midnight, whom do you seek?
Why so enchanted with hills, rivers and dales?

At the Chinese General's Tomb
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I see it there — looming, alone —
the General's tomb, so impressive!
But if I could be reborn, become a man,
with such advantages, couldn't I do better?

Advice to a Lamenting Widow
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why are you wailing, boo-hoo-ing, mourning a man?
Can it sister! Desist! Don't shame yourself!
O my ear sister, I should have warned you:
Don't eat meat, if it makes you ***** blood!

Wasps
by ** Xuan Huong
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where and why are you wandering, foolish wasps?
Come, your big sister will teach you to compose!
Silly baby wasps suckle from rotting stamens;
***** ewes **** fences when there’s freedom in the gaps.

Lament for Hô Xuân Huong
by Nguyen Emperor Thieu Tri's brother
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here the lake overflows with lotuses;
Allow the flower girls to gather some,
While not trampling Hô Xuân Huong's grave!
For in the Golden Springs beyond,
She still anguishes over lost love.
Her lipstick desiccate, her rouge faded, her tomb unattended,
Xuân Huong is gone…

Most of Huong's poems were written in Nôm script, a complex Vietnamese adaptation of Chinese characters employed from the 15th to 19th centuries. Through her Nôm poems, Huong helped elevate the status of Vietnamese poetry. A century later, she was called "the Queen of Nôm poetry" by Xuan Dieu, one of Vietnam’s greatest poets.

Huong was more than a mere penner of ****** verse; she was an "outspoken proto-feminist: an irreverent wild card bringing a new voice to Vietnamese poetry while marking out a bolder trail for what it means to be a woman."

"** Xuan Huong is an improbable figure in Vietnamese literature. Vietnamese historians are virtually unanimous in acclaiming her as the 'most special ' poetry writer who ever lived in Vietnam. … She wrote poetry which, for all its playfulness, may have been the darkest assault upon Confucian ethics ever delivered by a literate scholar of a classical East Asian society. Most modern Vietnamese writers agree that she often went too far, to the point where her contemporaries regarded her as a 'monster ' whose influence should be obliterated. — Alexander Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model

Confucian ethics decreed that a female should obey: first her father, then her husband, then her son after her husband’s death.

Huong was apparently born in the Quynh Luu district of the north-central province of Nghe An. Xuan Huong means "Spring Fragrance," "Spring Essence," or "Scent of Springtime." Her father, a scholar named ** Phi Dien, died young. Her mother remarried, as a concubine. Huong grew up near Thang Long (modern Ha Noi), in a male-dominated society in which polygamy was permitted and men were more privileged than women. Huong may or may not have been a concubine herself. Very little is known with any certainty about her life.

In 1962, Nguyễn Đức Bính admitted, "I don't know anything about the poetess Hồ Xuân Hương and other people don't know any more than I do." And yet legends do take on lives of their own!

Keywords/Tags: ** Xuan Huong, Vietnamese, English translations, snail, grass, shell, hole, breadfruit, jackfruit, tree, skin, hands, sap, stain, dumpling, body, powder, powdered, sink, bob, swim, pond, heart, center, red, nom script, spring fragrance, spring essence, concubine

hermit crab
never at home
for long

I'm sorry Mr. snail for stepping on your home
it wasn't intentional I'm just accident prone
in my defence, it was really dark
and you had stopped short on the path
but really that's not an excuse
for gods, green earth is for everyone's use
so please accept this humble poem
as way of apology for destroying your home.

Today I feel like a snail
who took forty years
to cross a road to find
that the other side was
the same.  And you don't
want to deal with the rage
of a tired snail.
It is sad to find yours is
such an unglamorous totem.

Tomorrow I will feel
like an old philosopher.
I might even go as far
as to offer advise
(tiresome and languid),
and will talk about my
great and epic drift
through the great gray dessert.
And you will say,
here's a wise man,
without knowing that
everything was a mistake.
That it still is.

I warn you, I can change
expressions, seamlessly.
Remember this, cats can't
smile, they can laugh or
destroy it's world,
with the furious sorrow
and as slowly
as a tired mollusk.
And they will try.