The Old Vietnamese Prisoner Poem by Duy Bui

Inspired by the Vietnamese prisoner who was in prison for 40 years and was finally released. He is now in his sixties and was asked if there was anything he would like to say by the Vietnamese-American Television, and he replied “Do you think I can fall in love anymore? ”

A prisoner to some, but the hero to most
was freed after forty years behind injustice
walls of others’ nostalgia.
He asked his friend, the howling wind “do you suppose
I can fall in love anymore? ”
It is funny how in your life, as you drift along in a routine,
one happy thing comes and everything changes.
You begin to see, and follow that vision along with that dream,
until that dream is no more. Your vision and dream would
become the truth, the love standing by your side;
like the morning grass whose overwhelming joy is the
sunlight grazing on its skin and with the green spirit of nature hovering over it.
When night comes, it sleeps with the moonlight,
listening to the lullaby of the crickets,
the endless dreams of frogs hopping in and out of water,
and from rocks to stones.

On a beautiful night of late June and with all the happiness in the world
the grass couldn’t sleep because it has manifested itself into a blanket;
the stage for none, but the couple living a tale of love.

A prisoner to some, but the hero to most was freed.