In honor of the Korean holiday, Teacher’s Day, we present this work by a Korean poet and teacher.

 

A person suffering from love
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is fullness
of an empty space, pleasure
of a person giving freely.
A few fallen grains
on a rice paddy after the harvest.

A person mourning separation
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is comfort
in the heaven that eternalizes
these encounters on earth.
The eyes of a pond
looking up at faraway stars.

A person afflicted with longing
even once
should visit a winter field.
There is awareness
that to watch you is to watch me,
to be alone is to be with others.
The scarecrow
watching the empty field alone.

Translation by Chae-Pyong Song and Darcy Brandel

We present this work in honor of Singmogil.

 

When trees dance
The wind will blow
When trees grow silent
The wind sleeps too

Translation by Tim Scroggins

 

When I come to the stream in Mount Turyu
whose beauty I have long since heard of,
I see the mountains mirrored in the waters
dotted with floating peach blossoms.
Where is the fairyland, my boy?
This alone is the place.

Translation by Jaihiun Kim

 

East winds that melt the mountain snow
Come and go, without words.
Blow over my head, young breeze,
Even for a moment, blow.
Would you could blow away the gray hairs
That grow so fast around my ears!

Sticks in one hand,
Branches in another:
I try to block old age with bushes,
And frosty hair with sticks:
But white hair came by a short cut,
Having seen through my devices.

Translation by Peter H. Lee

 

On the hard road of life and death
That is near our land,
You went, afraid,
Without words.

We know not where we go,
Leaves blown, scattered,
Though fallen from the same tree,
By the first winds of autumn.

Ah, I will polish the path
Until I meet you in the Pure Land

Translation by Peter H. Lee

 

Having caroused far into the night
In the moonlit capital,
I returned home and in my bed,
Behold four legs.

Two were mine;
Whose are the other two?
Formerly two were mine;
What shall be done now they are taken?

Translation by Peter H. Lee

We present this work in honor of the 405th anniversary of the poet’s death.

 

As the sun is about to set,
An old woman is wailing in the ruins of a village.
Her disheveled hair looks as if blighted by frost,
And her eyes are shadowed as if by dusk.
Her husband is in a cold jail cell,
Because he cannot pay off the money he owes,
And her son has gone off with the royal army.
Her house has been burned down to the base of the pillars;
Hiding out in the woods she has lost even her hemp petticoat.
She has no work, she has no wish even to go on living,
Why is the petty clerk of the district calling for her at the gate?

Translation by Peter H. Lee

 

Fluttering, the orioles
male and female together, so.
Reminded of my loneliness;
with whom will I ever go?