Your skin and flesh are flourishing – your clothes restricted
Population is increasing – housing always limited
Villages are growing – ricefields ever contracted.

You are uprooted from the palei
And thrown into the city.

You have no necklace / no jeans
Bearing a soul of hills
You are lost in strange streets

You do laundry in a strange apartment
You work as a helper in a strange garment factory
You panic in a strange alley.

Bearing a soul of ricefields
You fall into a strange night.

Oh Mother!

The night is starless, no direction for your return
Without the monsoon the day is misleading.

Your fingers have no rings
You still have the sad eyes
Your pockets have no money
You still have the sunny feet.

Where to go?

You disappear from the memory of your relatives
from the memory of your lover
from the memory of your friends
Mother is afar without a lingering trace
Only the memory of the palei keeps your name in the sedimentary depths
Of old.

Suddenly some day the hills witness your return
Complete with your sadness and joy for your neighbours
As a burning page of errata.

Departing from the soul of ricefields
from the soul of hills
She walks in the direction of the city.
Rising immensely,
The city is threatening to the wounded heart.

She still walks in the direction of the immense city
Waving her hand to brothers and sisters with open eyes
Waving to the lover now with wife and children
Waving to neighbours ever miserable with floods and storms.

It seems that her sad soul is clearing up
And ready to grow the fruit of dawn!

Suddenly some day the palei witnesses your return.
Opening the soul of hills and ricefields
As the inaugural line in bold characters.

Translated by Nguyen Tien Van