The Chair By Kim Myung In
Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek
The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism, 3(1), 221-224. Spring 2000.
From the storehouse I took out a chair
Placed it on the stairs under the eaves
And exhorted my body, pacing restlessly all day long, to sit
Come and sit down, my body
Has been standing or walking too long
Sometimes it was shut up in a corner of the storehouse
And served darkness as its master
In the dry rainy season, today the rain stops with a few sprinkles
When I see those rice plants all growing so soon
I wonder if the master of the fields is the wind,
I realize the rice plants hand over the chair to the wind
Despite their faltering legs
So that they can be ripened by that weight
When my wavering thought naturally becomes heavy
And I want to lift the chair up to the height of my forehead
I see the edges of Kusan over there, in a still pose since a long time before,
Patiently lowering her hind legs and carrying the waves on her back
You ask me for the fourth time what rest there is for us
It's a noontide I deny everything, and from somewhere
A diligent cock crows again for a long while
There is no one present, but something straddles my shoulders
And sways laboriously all day long
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