Poetry With Seoul...

Crying Over Light Green

Even as I scoop Korean sushi
into my mouth with a trembling hand,
the train forces the fields of summer into my eyes.
The light-green rice paddies prick my pupils.
Why is the field so green?
No, the word "green" is hardly adequate.
Every shade of green is said to be the same,
but to me light green is different -
a color containing a wave or a rustle
that never bows its head.
Look at the pure rice plants.
Why is my heart so dark?
I swallow a piece of Korean sushi
and moan. The sunlight washes over me until I fade out,
as it will fade out at dusk,
and tears overcome me - the minimum requirement
for emotion to circulate in my body.
Like juice, light green gathers in my eyes.
Well, I must have left something in that light.
The train runs through the summer fields in the afternoon.

- by Ra Heeduk, based on alternate translations from the Korean, one by Yeondue Ulda, the other by Won-Chung Kim and Christoper Merrill.

It Was Just A Brief Flash (excerpt)

In the dream

I couldn't find the entrance

Like a leaf swaying outside the

window

It was a brief flash

- by Choi Jeong-Rye, translated from the Korean by Melissa Dickey.

Renting a Room

To rent a room in Damyang or Changpyung
to visit like a chipmunk,
I looked in every village I came across.
Walking past a place in Jasil,
I saw common flowers in the yard
between a traditional Korean house and a modern annex.
When I entered the open gate,
a man was sharpening his scythe on the grindstone
and his wife's scarf was wet, as if she had just returned from the fields.
"Excuse me, I wonder if I could rent a room.
I'll stay here two or three nights a week."
When I pointed at the traditional house
she smiled, "Well our children moved to Seoul,
so we live in the annex. Yes, the main house
is unoccupied. But in our hearts we still live there,
our family history is embedded in it."
Listening to her, I saw the clean wooden floor
on which lay the last light of the day.
I left without pushing for a room,
wondering if the couple knew
that I had already rented it, was living in their words -
that in their hearts they lived in the vacant house.

- by Ra Heeduk, translated from the Korean by Won-Chung Kim and Christopher Merrill.