I Want to Bow By Park Suk Yee
Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek
The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism, 4(3), p. 215. Fall 2001.
I, I want to bow and lie flat before nature
Humbly, humbly, I want to offer a bow
I want to offer a bow because I have done so many things wrong
I want to kneel down on my hypocritical knees and offer a bow
Shedding a stream of tears which come out around a dry valley
I even want to lower my head before the fresh green of May
Shall I call my footprints together and ask them to lie flat with me?
Now, I should stitch a prisoner's number on my own chest
For the sin or fluttering about as if I were a firebird
For the sin of disguising myself in green as if I were an arborvitae
I seem to have long bound my love on the pretext of love
I seem to have greatly tortured the truth in the name of truth
I, shall I roll up my body in a curved line like a snail?
Shall I first modestly lower my head to myself?
The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism | Curriculum Vitae