HONG YUN-SUK
Hong Yun-suk was born in Cho¢¨ngju, Pyo¢¨nganbuk-do in 1925. Her first poems were published in 1947 and since then she has published many volumes of poetry and of essays, as well as a collection of poetic dramas. She has received many of Korea's top literary awards for her work. For much of her life she worked as a reporter for various newspapers and magazines.
Hong Yun-suk's poetry is often read alongside that of Kim Nam-jo, the two being considered the leading women writers of their generation; in addition, both are Catholic writers. Her vision of life is deeply affected by the suffering brought by the Korean War and the lasting division of Korea. Her poetic universe is often dark and inclined to pessimism. Perhaps the fact that she is unable to visit her native region in the North helps to explain the many images of life as an unending journey found in her work.
The themes of individual solitude and of the emptiness of modern life are expressed in many poems. When she tackles more public themes, the longing for the reunification of Korea dominates her concerns.
God
Camping last summer
was a beautiful experience.
While my white vest moist with dew
was dyed by the juices of the emerald grass
with here and there a shy touch of pink
added from wild carnations,
we crossed various hills to sunrise and sunset,
singing something as we went.
The blood from a knee grazed in a fall
was dried like a flower then stowed in my knapsack
I washed our grubby today hard,
starched it too
and on the hillsides
the slopes of this world rain fell
so that our camping
was still soaked in some corner or other.
Missing person:
aged twenty,
middling height,
the rosy knees, the fawn-like eyes
still the same as at birth,
swelling breast filled with azalea-hued love,
a basketful of sunlight poised on the head,
left home one day without a word.
Has no one seen this person
in the vagueness of thirty years's mist?
In any case, some time now
one such child,
may have fallen asleep, exhausted from wandering
the unfamiliar lanes of some twilight market,
empty basket laden with grey hairs and remorse.
Hoping for news. Address as follows:
Mail Box Memory, Lost Children's Sanctuary.
Reward:
will cover all the rest of my life.
What I can do
this autumn
is to stay sitting in my chair;
is to return silently into myself
as if returning to a hospital's deserted corridors,
ears alert to the sound of the wind
as I peep a couple of times into the mail box.
Someone
is everyday drying the world like baby leaves,
starting big and small fires here and there,
filling every empty space
with the sun's white bleached bones
but I cannot so much as lift a finger.
I cannot make one leaf stay put.
What I
can do this autumn
is to stay sitting in my chair
and bid farewell to the midday sun,
quietly await the afternoon,
courteously welcome winter's courtesy calls.
(Games 29)
Life has taught me many things.
How to pass thick woods in steep mountains's deep valleys,
the wisdom to love, wait, then finally part from one star,
I also learned that you must build a bridge to reach a village,
must get soaked in rain to see a rainbow.
I also learned how to be trodden down and trampled hard,
like a plantain spreading low, low to the ground,
flexing its slender stem,
and I heard of the freedom of owning nothing,
the earthen lump of a heavy heart reduced
to a light and faceless breeze.
Now the final message it has to give
involves walking dark mountain paths without a lamp
one day without warning reaching the end of the world.
To hear that last lesson, I
daily stretch open ears toward heaven
and wipe smoky windows.
The world's pungent smoke is still so thick
that once wiped they grow smoky,
then once smoky I wipe them again,
I spend my whole day at that one task.
Drenching my clothes with unsad tears. . .
Cross 2
Nobody told me:
the reason why flowers blossom when spring comes
and fruits ripen in the fall;
the cause why children grow up dreaming, become adults,
live fighting as adults, and die;
'that's how it is, you need not know more,'
life told me, hitting my head.
Spring has come again to the world,
every wound sports dazzling medals of flowers
all the trees stand ready for battle
but you hide silent in the springtime light
gathering up for the highest glory
flowers that in ten days or two weeks will wilt,
in that way living and passing away,
life's right answer is only that:
every bird of the heavens, and flower in the fields,
when the time is come, goes without delay.
There was a youth, barely thirty,
nailed to a cross though free of all guilt.
Softly the whisper comes to my ear.
In autumn
cosmic twilight comes
and as the world was astir
with golden memories
one heart
with no house to which to return
saw the very end of the wind
roaming the open plains.
The pure gold salt-field encrusted with salt
from sweat and tears, winter's shady spot,
mornings when the way to heaven could be glimpsed
unexpectedly,
God
in the cup of water
you grant my late days
the light of the western sky overflows.