Spring

By Lee Hyang Ji

Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek

Poem Gate. January 15, 2002.

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My spring is like the inside of a huge jar
I'm sitting on the rounded bottom of the jar wearing flower shoes
I'm a girl crying because I hate boiled barley
I should go up, I should go up
But my body is not a centipede's
My mother went to market and my father went to play baduk^*
My older half-sister called me into the kitchen and bloodied my nose
My younger sister went into a jar^** with the sound of a gong
I should go over, I should go over
But a ladder is leaning against the outside of the jar
My feet are getting bigger and bigger
The petals fall one at a time from my flower shoes
I should fly away, I should fly away
But my wings are farther away than the rainy season
When the sunbeams shine inside like pillars
I faint and become spring which is like a jar
That butterfly flying away wearing small, torn flower shoes
 

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^*baduk: a popular board game sometimes called Korean checkers.
^**went into a jar: In the past, it was a custom in the Korean countryside to bury a dead child inside a large earthenware jar, or pot, with a lid.

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