Võ Thị Như Mai Poetry | Vietnamese-Australian popular poet

Võ Thị Như Mai (Mai White) was born in Vietnam and began her career as a high school teacher before moving to Australia to pursue higher education. She holds a Master of Education and a Master of Literature and has worked as a full-time teacher in Western Australia for over twenty years. She is the founder of the long run THE RHYTHM OF VIETNAM, a platform promoting writers from Vietnam and many other parts of the world. She also starts working as a reporter of MULTICULTURAL PRESS.COM.AU, featuring many multicultural aspects of the writing world. In May 2025, she was honoured with an Excellence Award from the Consulate General in Australia, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the preservation and promotion of her native language and literary heritage within the international community. Vo Thi Nhu Mai has participated in and performed poetry recitations at recent international poetry festivals in Vietnam, Turkey, and Indonesia.

Võ Thị Như Mai 

YOUR EYES

your eyes, a shade of green
a wildflower on the meadow
a memory at the wind’s edge
dancing an angel’s rhythm

your eyes hold the night
engraved with gleaming stars
a romantic moon at midnight
casting light on a tranquil lake

your eyes, slender as willow leaves
hide within a shadowed forest
a winged bird melting into sky
twilight threads beneath the trees

your eyes of a quiet home
whispering silent prayers
we share the brimming, bitter tears
of every sorrowed farewell’s trace

your eyes, twin gems with quiet fire
transform each written word
into the wanderer’s footstep
a heart loosed like a dove in flight

is it these eyes you seek
an ocean swelling with waves?
In the storm-tossed gaze of love
we drown in the season of longing

you walk through city streets
singing sweet and verdant songs
eyes filled with first love
as if just learning how to feel

V.T.N.M.

MANY TIMES

Many times I simply wish
To sit beside you for a while
Listening to early love in autumn
As leaves falling in Chan May Port

Many times I feel such pureness
And your lips are sweetly soft
Shadows at twilight swaying
Adding season of longing to the night

Many times the moon would ask
Is a lunar eclipse still a full moon
You sketch a poem using smoke
In the lake reflecting almond-shaped eyes

Oh, middle-aged hair, soft with time
And the crow’s feet that can smile
Let dreams not drift away
They still seek our twenty-year spring

Oh, hands with stories in each vein
And feet enhanced with sunlit stains
The ocean leaning in silence
Listening to our gentle heartbeat

Many times the porch seems shy
Dropping rhymes that are out of tune
The wind binds us into one
For our love to roam freely with imagination

V.T.N.M.

BY YOUR SIDE, MY DEAREST MOTHER

I return to be by your side, my dearest mother
A small house on the hill
Off Nguyen Van Troi street
Sitting next to you whispering every night
Tell our stories of the past
Overwhelming with forgetfulness and memories

I return to think of my father
The sound from Linh Son pagoda
No more Father’s chant with the wooden bell
My brothers come and go like the wind
Carrying with them love scent of rice blades
walking through town at new year

I walk along the field on a moonlit night
The path is filled with scratchy dried grass
At time I fall down, winter buries in my chest
Listening to your calling, I stand up to keep on walking

I return to be by your side, my wonderful mother
Leaving behind a rough time of storms
You have guided many people
and helped them earn their livings
And now you are happy to think of all the good time

I embrace you, the world filled with so many varieties
Breathing in and out, precious and short moments of reunion
Thanks to this universe, rosy cheeks of my mother
Going through eighty six springs, my mother is getting older
For us to become good people
We are grateful to you, our beloved mother

THE VALUE OF PEACE

the farmer’s dream burns brightly, stained with blood
ploughing the soil where mothers sent their children
to guard the morning, guard it for planting

peace is the song dancing in ancient rivers
chanted by hearts from Trưng sisters to the hills of Quảng Trị
through wars full of purpose, freedom or braveness

we remain standing, no matter what comes
we raise no sword for conquest, but for the right to
live on our land with dignity, sun above us, rice in our baskets

love is the strength that rhythms beneath the ruins
lifting the child from rubble to write a future
even in fire, the spirit of peace keeps glowing, sacred, enduring

so let the world remember our small, fierce nation
beating like drums in marches for truth and justice
standing with voices burning, singing of mercy