Submission by Manhae Han Yong-Un (Translated by
Francisca Cho)
Others love their freedom, but I prefer submission.
It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t know freedom.
I just want to submit to you.
Willing submission is sweeter than exalted freedom.
If you tell me to submit to someone else,
that¡¯s the only thing to which I can¡¯t submit.
If I submit to someone else, I can¡¯t submit to you.
Azaleas by Kim So-wŏl
When seeing me sickens you
and you walk out
I'll send you off without a word, no fuss.
Yongbyon's mount Yaksan's
azaleas
by the armful I'll scatter in your path.
With parting steps
on those strewn flowers
treading lightly, go on, leave.
When seeing me sickens you
and you walk out
why, I'd rather die than weep one tear.
Beside a chrysanthemum by Midang Sŏ
Chŏng-ju
For one chrysanthemum to bloom
a nightingale
has sobbed since spring, perhaps.
For one chrysanthemum to bloom
thunder
has pealed in dark clouds, perhaps.
Flower! Like my sister standing
at her mirror, just back
from far away, far away byways of youth,
where she was racked with longing and lack:
last night's frost came down
to bid your yellow petals bloom, perhaps,
while I could not get to sleep.
Grass by Kim Su-yŏng
The grass is lying flat.
Fluttering in the east wind that brings rain in its
train,
the grass lay flat
and at last it wept.
As the day grew cloudier, it wept even more
and lay flat again.
The grass is lying flat.
It lies flat more quickly than the wind.
It weeps more quickly than the wind.
It rises more quickly than the wind.
The day is cloudy, the grass is lying flat.
It lies low as the ankles
low as the feet.
Though it lies flat later than the wind,
it rises more quickly than the wind
and though it weeps later than the wind,
it laughs more quickly than the wind.
The day is cloudy, the grass's roots are lying flat.
Flower by Kim Ch¡¯un-su
Before I spoke his name
he was simply
one set of gestures, nothing more.
Then I spoke his name,
he came to me
and became a flower.
Just as I spoke his name,
I hope that someone will speak my name,
one right for my color and perfume.
I long to go to him
and become his flower.
We all of us
long to become something.
You for me, and I for you,
we long to become a never-to-be-forgotten gaze.
Back to Heaven by Chŏn
Sang-pyŏng
I'll go back to heaven again.
Hand in hand with the dew
that melts at a touch of the dawning day,
I'll go back to heaven again.
With the dusk, together, just we two,
at a sign from a cloud after playing on the slopes
I'll go back to heaven again.
At the end of my outing to this beautiful world
I'll go back and say: It was beautiful. . . .
Mokkye Market by Shin Kyŏng-Nim
The sky urges me to turn into a cloud,
the earth urges me to turn into a breeze,
a little breeze waking weeds on the ferry landing
once storm clouds have scattered and rain has
cleared.
To turn into a peddler sad even in autumn light,
going to Mokkye Ferry, three days' boat ride from
Seoul,
to sell patent face-powders, on days four and nine.
The hills urge me to turn into a meadow flower,
the stream urges me to turn into a stone.
To hide my face in the grass when hoarfrost bites,
to wedge behind rocks when rapids rage cruel.
To turn into a traveller with pack laid by, resting
on a clay hovel's wood step, river shrimps boiling
up,
changed into a fool for a week or so, once in thrice
three years.
The sky urges me to turn into a breeze,
the hills urge me to turn into a stone.
Today by Ku Sang
Today again I confront a day that is source of
mystery.
In this day the past, present and future are one,
just as each drop of water in that river
is linked to a tiny spring in some mountain valley
and linked to the distant, azure sea.
In that way, in this today of mine, being linked to
eternity,
at this very moment I am living that eternity.
That means that it is not after I have died
but from today on that I must live eternity,
must live a life worthy of eternity.
I must live in poverty of heart.
I must live with an empty heart.