By the Han River in Winter

By Kim Nam Jo
 

Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek

The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism, 2(4), 67-68. Winter 1999.

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Winter river
Your score has no finale
Today under the frozen river bed
Lie dark blue skeins of thread
Frightening and beautiful
What if there is a person
Possessed and submerged there?

A boat may have passed by
As pieces of ice floated at the edges of the exposed current
Perhaps
It was a discolored ferry boat
Someone in the boat
Sleeves of his attire flapping in the north wind
And the sound of ice splitting by the sides of the boat
Crunch crunch
Someone may have run after him
Shouting "Hello, hello"

In a Japanese movie
I saw when I was young
There was a white-haired man
Carrying on his back his bleeding daughter
Who had stabbed herself in the chest with a dagger
Calling and running after a youth in a boat
"Hey there, stop
Please stop . . ."

There must have been a boat
Sent off in bitterness
By almost anyone
Who must have shouted while weeping
"Stop stop . . ."

Winter river
It would be good if all partings in one's life
Got together like a class reunion
Kaang kaang suwollae^*
It would be good if there were circle dancing
If there were a full moon
It would be even better
 

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^*kaang kaang suwollae (originally, kang kang suwollae): A traditional Korean folk dance done only by women under a full moon.

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The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism | Curriculum Vitae