A Wide Pasture inside a Stone

By Lee Hyang Ji

Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek

Poem Gate. May 30, 2001.

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I tore my mother open and came inside
I wore my first clothes of my mother's blood
My ears first opened to my mother's screams
My eyes first opened to my mother's fingers
I ate my first food from my mother's spoon
Until my blood became the first clothes of my child
I grew rapidly inside of it
Since no one can leave the labyrinth behind without tearing someone open
For my child to tear me open at the right time
I linked a long cord to the mouth of the pasture
When I tore her open and left the labyrinth, my mother's water
All followed me and went to my daughter
Although my mother became a solid stone for me
The long cord which I and my daughter grasped to come out
Is still connected solidly to the mouth of the pasture
A strong mother is not torn open easily
But for a naked body coming with half a mirror,^* as easily as this
She becomes a stone and links to a wide pasture
 

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^*This is an allusion to a Korean myth in which a prince, the rightful heir to the throne, is recognized by the possession of half of a broken mirror which was given to his mother while she was still pregnant.

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