Verses of Transformation

Born in central Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War, Sister Dang Nghiem grew up singing made-up songs to comfort herself and express her suffering. After moving to the US, she began writing poetry at the encouragement of an English teacher and eventually ordained as a nun in the Plum Village tradition following the sudden death of her partner. Her latest book, The River in Me: Verses of Transformation, brings together over three decades of her poetry, charting her own journey from turmoil and loss to tranquility and compassion.

In a recent episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sat down with Sister D to discuss how writing has helped her process the violence she witnessed, why she hopes her poetry can offer not just a description of suffering but a way out of it, and how gathas, or verses, can transform mundane activities into moments of awareness. Read several poems from her new collection below, and then listen to the full episode.

Chanting

Nam mô a di đà bà giạ,
Đá tha già đá dạ, đa địa dạ tha,
A di lỵ đô bà tỳ, a di lỵ đa tất đam bà tỳ,
A di lỵ ca tì ca lan đế, a di lỵ đa tì ca lan đa,
Dà di nị dà dà na, chỉ đa ca lệ ta bà ha.

When I was twelve
I rode Grandmother to the temple
On the back of a purple bicycle.
I learned to pray, words
I realized eleven years later
I did not understand.

Nam mô a di đà bà giạ, đá tha già đá giạ, đa địa dạ tha

Someone hit my foster mom’s head
While she was drunk,
Standing in a telephone booth.
She woke up in an open field
And remembered only the fingers
That pulled down the zipper.

A di lỵ đô bà tỳ, a di lỵ đa tất đam bà tỳ

This was my American mother
Who taught me to say:
“May I have a sheet of paper?”
Instead of saying: “May I have a shit of paper?”
Who became tongue-tied while trying to help me
Hear the difference
Between “beach” and “bitch.”
Who held my hand
As we crossed the parking lot
To go to the grocery store.
She, twenty-nine, 5’ 9”, with a hip-length blond wig,
I, sixteen, 5’ 6”, with dark hair.

A di lỵ đô bà tỳ, a di lỵ đa tất đam bà tỳ,
A di lỵ ca tì ca lan đế, a di lỵ đa tì ca lan đa,
Dà di nị dà dà na, chỉ đa ca lệ ta bà ha

I now know more words than she does.
Yet I find none to soothe her pain.

So here, in the midst of burning incense and tears,
I return to Grandmother
And to this chant
I still do not understand.

I pray: Teach us to listen
Teach us to forgive our suffering
Teach us to understand others’ suffering.

Nam mô A Di Đà Phật
Nam mô Đại Từ Đại Bi cứu khổ cứu nạn Quán Thế Âm Bồ Tát.

As It Is

I can be engrossed
In learning French, reading sutras,
But this heavy feeling inside me is still there.

Wherever I go, there it is.
Whatever I do, there it is.

This IT gnaws at me.

I wish to lie down and expire,
But IT will not deteriorate with my body,
Just as a tree may collapse,
But from its roots, it is continued.

One day, then another passes by,
I’m growing older.
I feel my aging, in the achiness of this body,
The sensitivity of the digestive tract,
The coldness of these extremities.

What have I done
To become freer?

I gave up a doctor’s fame.
I shaved my head and look
Like somebody I myself don’t recognize.
I keep three sets of clothes
And would be happy to give up
This heavy IT
Along with my extra robes to Sister Abbess.
Yet, I know IT is mine to sit with,
To embrace, to understand, and to transform.

IT is my daily death and sustenance.
IT is my one-way ticket to liberation.

Rebirth

I have died in the ocean, towered by waves.
I have died at the bottom of a sharp cliff.
I have died in the midst of lonely nights.
I have died on my knees on the sidewalk.
I have died and have been reborn,

Brand new like a baby with breath
Still fragrant of mother’s milk.
There is laughter in each discovering step.

I have returned to be the child of earth and sky,
Full of wildflowers and dancing grass.

Thirty-Six-Year Anniversary

I am thirty-six today.

Mother, at the age of thirty-six,
You had two children,
An old husband,
Many ambitions,
Worries,
Anger,
Pain.

I am more fortunate than you.
I can take peaceful steps.
I have a chance to sit still.
No one is toiling with my body.
I marvel at the autumn light.

You thought of ways to get more from life.
I ask myself: How can I stop?

Mother, my life is because your life was.
I take these peaceful steps for you.
I sit still for you.
I heal this body for you.

The gentle light traverses infinite time.

♦

These poems are reproduced from the book, The River in Me (Aug. 2024), by Sister Dang Nghiem, with the permission of Parallax Press.