Such was the impression that Sóng Viêt's poem Em Nhu'... made on me back in August 2002 that I set out to work on a rendition that would capture its poetic imagery and romantic touch in as simple a way as I knew how.

When I first read the poem I was stunned. Heaven's silky thread? A web of love? It went straight to my heart, and spoke to me with the unmistakable voice of romance. The novel imagery and exquisite poetry of the first verse moved me to distraction. The poem was nothing short of intoxicating, so captivating and so seductive it took my breath away. And I did not even know whether the person who penned these lines of verse was a man or a woman. I assumed the first case, only to be over time disabused of my erroneous assumption. I now know better.

Here is just one more of the many manifestations of Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang's extraordinary ability to probe the stirrings within a man's heart, and to depict with vividness and authenticity the feelings that are found sizzling deep inside. It is as if she gets under the man's skin and experiences first hand the kind of effervescence and turmoil churning his soul at a madly feverish pace. It seems at first blush paradoxical that a woman could somehow identify herself with a man in love so intimately and unerringly. Having by now gained a deeper understanding of this poet's heart and mind through a wider exposure to her works, I am no longer surprised at her consummate skill at portraying genuine feelings that profoundly move her readers. For Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang truly knows a man's heart as much as she does a woman's heart. She possesses such a delicate and sensitive mind that she can fathom and lay bare your inner emotions with incredible insight and empathy. How else could she touch you and me so directly and immediately? This is where her profound humanity shines in a deep, indelible way.

The poem portrays a love-stricken man effusively pouring his heart out to his beloved woman. It begins with a lovely image of the man's sweetheart, and ends with his yearning to see her and grasp her in his arms.

The first verse of the poem confronted me with an intriguing simile of a radiant beauty who is so delicate that she is likened to something as ethereal as a heavenly silk thread.

Let me get out of the real world and into the world that Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang has built with her poem.

I am in this world now in search of my love. I can picture in my mind a silk thread that glistens in the morning sun, swaying and gently dancing in its descent to earth from the heavens above. I see a slender, beautiful young woman endowed with grace and charm alighting from her heavenly abode to fill the world with joy and beauty. She is without a doubt my love. And I am her secret lover, opening my heart to her and speaking to her through the magic of Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang's poem.

You are a perfect vision of a beauty who is out of reach to mortals like me. Yet you are also a vision so alluring and irresistible that I throw all cautions to the wind, and reach up in the hopes of being the one to grab you in my arms. As the saying goes, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. In my audacity I pit my mortality against your immortality, my coarse brute strength against the superior might of your disturbing beauty. Do you see my foolishness and the doom that awaits me? Do you see the plight I am in when my heart flutters at your sight?

Unbeknownst to you, the web of silk thread you weave and cast abroad ensnared me, and held captive my poor self, the mortal who dared and was destined to suffer. Because from now on, I am inextricably entangled in your web of love, to be your prisoner to perpetuity, every moment of my life, every season of the year. I am hopelessly reduced to a being who exists only to yearn day and night, and to agonize grievously for my temerity.

In the mighty grip of your heavenly web, I pine away helplessly without a possibility of escape or relief from the pain I feel. If you could only know how I suffer from this passion that you inspired in my heart! By falling in love with you I have voluntarily pledged my commitment to a life of servitude to your every wish and desire. Yet I am not sure that you know of the agony in my soul, and of the cries that are tearing up every fiber of my heart as it aches terribly my every waking moment.

Why did I not know the impossibility of a love that is so forbidden and so unreachable? Such was the extent of my blindness that I saw bliss where more lucid minds saw despair. Now I am paying for it with unrelenting pain.

Look at the silk web that trapped me. It was made of fibers of intoxicating love, every strand of which was made desirable with warmth from the sun, and was soft to the touch from its texture of velvet. How more seductive can you be? Oh, such eternal yet elusive bliss! How could I, a mere man of earth like me, be so bold as to aspire to someone so divine like you? My love, you may sow joy and happiness to the world, but my harvest is nothing but yearning and self-doubt because I still do not know your heart and how it feels for me.

Can you ever imagine any man capable of the love I have for you? It is the kind of love that consumes my life in a passion so powerful that it could sever me from the last shred of sanity I have left. Since I had the boldness to love such an unattainable angel of beauty as you, I now face loneliness and deep longing. And yet, you know nothing of my murmurs of love that softly sing in your ear. You know nothing of the feelings that burn me up inside. If you knew how much I love you, what would you do? Would you extend your hand to me, and receive me in your bosom? Would you beckon to me, and offer me a tiny corner in your heart? Or would you just pretend not to know, preferring blissful ignorance to avoid seeing the pain that is searing my mind?

When did I fall in love with you? I could not answer that question. To me it seems like I have always been in love with you, since the beginning of memory or since the beginning of time. And now, I am floating between the state of sobriety and that of drunkenness, but more likely in the latter. I am engulfed in my own inexplicable love, desperately trying to reach the shores of sanity, which keep receding the more I try. I suffer the punishment of Tantalus. The more I reach, the farther I drift away.

Oh, love and fate! I am drowning in the stormy sea of love. As I cast about for a reason of my woe, I see only myself, my loneliness, and my forlorn, lost, and irredeemable condition. But I can't just accept my fate. I have to find a way to see you. I have to tell you of my love and my suffering, and let you rescue me from my wretchedness because you and you only can shed the light of hope in my life, repair my broken heart, and give me a reason to face tomorrow. You and only you can set me free from my pain and the depth of despondency in which I find myself every minute that I love you.

When will you let me see you, dear? When will I see you in the flesh? Let me climb up your heavenly web in search of my dream, you my angel, and your love for me. Even if it is an impossible task, it will attempt it. It will try because your lovely heart moves me. It spurs me on whether you realize it or not. And when I find you, sweetheart, I will grasp you in my arms to have and to hold to eternity. Will you let me? Will you?

And now, dear friends, I give you Sóng Viêt-Ðàm Giang, and her incomparably beautiful poem, Em Nhu'...