Impossible Dreams By Lee Hyang Ji
Translated by Rodney E. Tyson & Hong Eun-Taek
Poem Gate. January 15, 2002.
I am not lead, not a cart loaded with lead, not an old coachman, not a crippled horse, not a thrashing leather whip, but cartwheels rolling along loaded with all of those things
I am cartwheels loaded not just with those heavy things, not just with those groaning things, not just with those lonely and weary things, not just with those shouting things, not just with those blindly yielding or creaking things, but with all of those things at once
On this hard asphalt, in the shade of these stuffy buildings, in this stifling air, among the four wheels speeding straight ahead, I am two wheels rolling along a dirt road one hundred years ago or fifty years ago
In the corner of a forgotten barn, one wheel here and one wheel over there are disconnected and lie dreaming innumerable daydreams
The dreams of a pair of cartwheels whispering together as they roll along a dirt road
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