Kim Hyŏnsŭng (1913-1975): born in Kwangju, South
Cholla Province. Graduated from the Humanities Department of Sungsil Junior
College. Initiated his literary career in March 1934 with the publication of
the poem "Ssŭlssŭlhan chŏnyoki ol ttae tangsindŭl" in the
"Donga Ilbo". His
published volumes of poetry include "Kim Hyŏnsŭng sich'o" (1957),
"Onghojaui norae" (1963), "Kyŏngohan kodŏk" (1968), "Chŏldaekodŏk" (1968). In his
early years, Kim Hyŏnsŭng strove to rise above the situation of
the country under Japanese occupation by a kind of individualism that might be
termed nationalistic romanticism, and for almost ten years wrote nothing; after
Korea's Liberation in 1945, he began to write poems pondering on the meaning of
existence in speculative language. The question he most directly focussed on
was human solitude, and his poetic individuality consists in his use of clear
and convincing imagery within concrete structures. In later years, having
joined a particularly puritanical brand of protestantism, he pondered the
solitude of the individual person before the Absolute Being. Yet paradoxically,
having once hypothesized the existence of an Absolute Saving Being, he arrives
at the ironical conclusion that that solitude can never become an absolute
solitude.
Bird of my soul.
Other again
than you, with
your great eminence
or you, so deeply
experienced,
that truly
beautiful things
and things
remaining alone
are able to draw
close to:
speech originally
nobly born out of
silence,
whose fruit
was once flowers,
wrapped in your
own and your ancestors' hue.
Sitting on my dry
branches
as I rise slender
in December's empty fields,
sitting alone in
my branches
rooted in firm
responsibility,
staring blankly
even at the
darkening sky, even the sky,
with a voice
biting, ah, at your soul's mud walls,
striking against
the walls,
caaaw...
caw...
Love is the
heart's
jewel, the eye's
wine.
Something with
eyes closed at the climax
of flames burning
and night breathing.
Something with
pure lips
utterly detached
from even the soul's meaning.
That composes a
tight pattern on the ground of old memories,
as carbon-hued
sighs pile higher and higher.
That is a touching
image, invariably glorious,
in those icy
crystallizations.
That bursts in the
midst of a contented breast
with an impact
more violent than any shot.
In order to turn
these things into an intoxication
more lovely and
more solid still,
one day I tossed
them all
toward the blazing
sun!
Yet this eye, the
tongue's first word from open lips,
the vows stubborn
as any enemy
with nothing left
to crumble,
burn ever more new
every day, every
day, in that light's blazing heart.
Spring
rises like a
breath
from nearby
ground.
Autumn
comes surging like
an icy wave
from distant
heaven.
Unlike the spring
that, grinding petals,
shapes the flesh,
autumn,
that trims and
cleans stars by thought,
creates my heart's
jewels.
If we say that
spring is blind,
autumn's lips are
sealed.
In the midst of
words, spring
selects your song,
while autumn
scatters your song
and selects my
words' interstices
in the silent
night.
At last I have
succeeded in touching the far
end of eternity
that I have been meditating on.
Arriving there, I
rub my eyes
and finally wake
from prolonged slumber.
At the tips of my
touching fingers
eternity's stars
scatter and lose their light
but at the tips of
my touching fingers
I gain a new sense
of bodily warmth
drawing yet closer
to me.
By that warmth I
hug to my breast all alone
my eternity that
is finishing with me.
Then I finally
send flying like dust from my fingertips
the wings of my
words
that support me
inwardly as dreams
Stroking stroking
with my wrinkled hand
the beautiful
eternity
that is now
finishing with me,
at my fingertips
that can advance no farther
at last I close my
lips -- and my poem, too.
On my breakfast
table
a roll of bread,
a glass of water.
O, God,
making me most
beautiful
by poverty.
O, God,
leaving winter's
dry leaves
on your branches'
very tips.
O, God,
O, quiet sunlight,
laying a hand on
my dry crust
this bright
morning.