Samara Joy is a young singer with an old soul. Ms. Joy sounds so much like the jazz legend Sarah Vaughan—no crime in that. Just like Ms. Vaughan, Ms. Joy can swing (“Sweet Pumpkin”) and can croon (“Lust Life”) as well. Linger Awhile, an Amazon original deluxe edition, is an album I can just kick back, relax, and enjoy for an hour and twenty minutes after a long day at work.
There’s a sound of a bird fading into the far distance
There’s a season of red Jiracanda flowers suddenly forgotten
There’s passions that no longer burn
A few drops of sadness falling in the night
The laurel tree in the garden corner
blooms bright white flowers
Its fragrance spread with late night dewdrops falling
A wide world in a little corner,
the tree stretch its branches and leaves
Who knows that the wind will be going to somewhere faraway…
Certain feelings lie quietly in my heart,
I will no longer mention them
The cup of dream, illusionary and cold on my lips
The moonlight, under the lake, quietly sleeps
There’s only golden autumn blowing the leaves…
Translated by Vương Thanh
Có tiếng chim phai vào xa vắng
Có mùa phượng đỏ chợt lãng quên
Có những nồng nàn không cháy nữa
Lạc đôi giọt buồn về trong đêm
Nguyệt quế góc thềm hoa trắng xóa
Hương thơm tỏa đượm dưới sương khuya
Thênh thang góc nhỏ xòa cành lá
Nào biết chiều nay cơn gió xa…
Ta lắng chuyện lòng không nhắc nữa
Chén mơ hư ảo lạnh trên môi
Ánh trăng đắm dưới hồ yên ngủ
Chỉ có thu vàng lá cuốn… rơi…
Thiên Di
Emily Stewart, writing for Vox:
These jobless employed are a persistent presence in the working world, their existence a bug that’s become a feature. There’s a percentage of every job that’s bullshit, and in their case, that’s 90 percent, minimum.
I want a useless job.
Today 15 years ago, I married the love of my life. On our first slow dance at our wedding reception, we whispered in each other’s ear promising to stay together no matter what. Our vow had been put to test in the past decade and a half.
In the beginning of our relationship, we were madly in love. After the honeymoon period, reality kicked in. Our marriage struggled. Even when our relationship had faced uncertainties, we had not walked away.
As our family grew, we struggled together as parents. We are blessed to have four healthy boys, but the challenges never stop. Even when faced with turbulences, we managed to navigate our way through. With our kids and everything we had built together, walking away was no longer an option. There were times, I tried to imagine what my life would be like without my wife, and possibly without my boys, but just the thought alone made me miserable. I need my wife and my family.
Being together for 15 years is a milestone. Writing this post and reflecting on our marriage are my ways of celebration. Each year, I took a look at our wedding webpage and made changes. I revised my writing, redesigned the layout, and changed the typesetting. This year, I put together a gallery to include photos from the morning ceremony to the afternoon photoshoot to the evening reception. I am not sure why it took me 15 years to do it.
In the last few years, our relationship had improved. I appreciate all the things my wife had done to keep our marriage alive. I hope I had done my part as well. As we continue our journey through life, we will face more tumultuous times. As long as we continue to hold our hands together and won’t let go, we will make it through the next 15 and 30 years. I will always keep my promise from our first dance with the song we picked together:
Even if it rains daily, I want to walk with you till the end of life
Even if dark clouds or storms are gathering, I long to be at your side
Even if it’s windy and biting cold, or the roads muddied with snow
Even if the leaves are falling, sad and desolate…
Even if whatever… Whatever happens…, I Will Still Love You…
I am here to stay.
Tonight, Time seems to stand still
To let the lovers be lost in a dream
The rain makes it difficult to say goodbye
Since the road home’s far and it’s wet outside
Your skin like silk, your long hair so soft
Sparkling stars shine brightly in your eyes
Fragrant lips make it difficult to say goodbye
Since the road home’s far and it’s wet outside
Since the road home’s far and it’s wet outside
You want me to take you home
Why don’t you stay here tonight
Since the road home’s far and it’s wet outside
Please don’t make me take you home.
Please don’t go home as the road’s too far
Please let the rain keeps falling without ever stopping
To let the lovers be lost in a dream
And forget to say goodbye
Since the road home’s far and it’s wet outside.
Translated by Vương Thanh
Đêm nay thời gian đứng yên lắng đọng
Cho đôi tình nhân đắm trong giấc mộng
Mưa rơi làm thêm khó câu giã từ
Vì đường xa ướt mưa
Da em lụa là, tóc em xõa mềm
Lung linh trời sao sáng trong mắt em
Môi em làm thêm khó câu giã từ
Vì đường xa ướt mưa
Vì đường xa ướt mưa
Em muốn anh đưa em về
Sao em không ở lại đây đêm nay
Vì đường xa ướt mưa
Đừng bắt anh đưa em về
Anh xin em đừng về đường quá xa xôi
Xin mưa triền miên mãi không lắng đọng
Cho đôi tình nhân đuối trong giấc mộng
Trong cơn ngủ quên trốn câu giã từ
Vì đường xa ướt mưa.
Đức Huy
Ron DeSantis has entered the 2024 presidential race. In his announcement, he boasts, “I’m running for president to lead our Great American Comeback.” Comeback to what? As a governor of Florida, DeSantis leads the fight in banning books. In what period of America was reading being banned? Remember the acts against the education of slaves South Carolina, 1740 and Virginia, 1819? His messages and his actions in Florida are loud and clear. DeSantis wants to take our Great America back to slavery.
When day comes we ask ourselves,
‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’
the loss we carry,
a sea we must wade?
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it,
somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished,
far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and
conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew;
that even as we hurt, we hoped;
that even as we tired, we tried;
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious,
not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time
then victory won’t lie in the blade
but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb
if only we dare it,
because being American is more than a pride we inherit —
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth,
in this faith we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption
we feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter,
to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked,
‘how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe,’
now we assert,
‘how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be:
a country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce, and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution,
we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover
in every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it,
if only we’re brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman tweets:
One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can’t ban assault rifles from massacring them.
I am practicing to let go of things that are out of my control. I am letting go of my worries and I am just taking things easy. I don’t know what the consequences will be, but I am feeling less stressed.
After 12 years of taking the helm of the website, I am letting it go. I am getting paid to maintain it and that’s it. I don’t have to own it. I don’t have to take full responsibility for it. I don’t know where I will end up, but I will navigate my way through.
I thought being a parent gets easier as the kids get older, but it is the opposite. I have to let them do their own things. Instead of worrying, I need to focus on getting them to the point where they don’t need me anymore. My job as a parent is to become obsolete.
I am also learning to let go of everything else unnecessary in my life. Let go of the messes, the dramas, the gossips, the politics, the comparisons, the envies, the jealousies, the greedies, and the negativities.