by Pak Chaesam
Until the age of twenty
I had lived in such longing,
senseless as the grove of trees
dizzily shaking its long hair
loose; O
breathless tree, O love!
Now nearing forty,
the backs of my hands thin and bony,
and the trees as well
have become winter trees, shamelessly
shedding their leaves.
They have taken off all that feels good
to take off.
And now as I settle
into the bath, I see
them drawing bit by bit
more gladly near, waving
their hands at me, the landscape
taking form in the mist and evening glow,
as if in affirmation.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 62
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Spring Riverside
Having given birth, my wife,
the flow of her breast
is a river, it
dazzles the eye,
I cannot look straight at it;
that aching bone joint
neighborhood where the sin occurred
is hidden, obscured by haze;
I cannot point to it,
the water’s force rising into verdant grasses while I bite back ten thousand
more things that I would say.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 64
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r By the Night Sea
At my sister’s side, sitting by her skirt, restless at the edge of her sorrow,
I want to get beyond the alleyways to stand by the sea.
When my heart’s ache
and in my eyes the tears
well up, I would become more like the numberless, the sharp flower scales shimmering in moonlight on the sea.
Many words to be said, under the sky.
Like the glitter of many stars in the sky, let them become waves on the night sea and shine, brilliant; or perhaps they must ache.
Soon my sister would be asleep, adrift, like the islands.
I would bury my face in my sister’s skirt
like the small waves that come ashore the island, and cry out the faint and distant cries they made.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 66
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Having a Drink
Having a drink, that drink
spun my body several times around,
to wander away through the world.
You may not know
my ill-favored gesture here
to draw close to your side
relied more than a little bit
upon the strength a drink might lend.
The lilac now blossoming in my yard
works away assiduously
to send its scent over the top of the wall.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 68
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Poplar
In your eyes where
I gathered stars last night,
today I gather
the silks and beads on poplar leaves
woven by the glimmering sunlight and winds.
Under the midday poplar
where you can neither avoid the sunlight
nor turn away from the wind,
you might brush back your straying hair,
click your tongue,
fiddling at any thing,
quite unaware
where you stood is neither
the near end of that world
nor the far end of this,
but the place where its spirit stays.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 70
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Friend, You Have Gone
Friend, you have gone,
and I wonder if in place of not being able to see you something else might come to balance the weight of that longing.
Where leaves have fallen,
just that weight of wind will linger
at the very tips of the boughs.
So today I push
my way through a forest of letters
to shape verses, knowing well
there is no comparing them
to the wind’s still lingering
in the branches of the tree.
My friend, your leaving causes me
to feel deep in my bones
there is nothing of the ordinary about this.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 72
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r My Poem
There; see:
the leaves that know
nothing beyond reflection,
gleaming bright green
in the sunlight.
In soft winds they lay their bodies
some this way, some that,
leaving as a glad song
only life’s brilliance in this world.
But it is only that once,
that most precious act at the end
simply vanishing. Observing
such complete absence of desire,
I feel empty, ashamed.
I write poems.
I record what I hope
will be left behind in this world
after I have died and gone,
but unable to attain the coolness and depth of those leaves,
the empty vanity of the act
undoes me.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 74
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r At the River
Like setting down a heavy burden
I unbind my heart by the river.
Today I was not anxious
for it, and the shimmering air
left me dizzy.
Feeling the press of life
like the grass blade filled with its sap,
I remember the flickering
passing of dreamlike hours,
while the sun floods down so
my eyes close themselves . . .
Heart that looks back on days such as this grows generous, opens.
Shimmering of the river
is not wrinkled skin
but my dazzling trace
that tears have chaliced.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 76
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Recollection 18
Watching the waves
still and quiet as a lake, day and night,
I thought of how one corner of the sea unfolds right here, and others to moisten the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean; and even Arctic and Antarctic, places where most of us will never go.
Not something imagination can grasp,
but something reality discloses.
In my childhood I kept it hidden from all others, a treasure I alone had discovered
and I alone knew. Possession
of so magical though trivial a dream
put a brilliant crown on my young head.
The whole world might be splendid, then,
and I as worthy, as honorable as any.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 78
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Recollection 29
Our little peppers frozen white inside our pants, we played war games on the hillside by the sea.
Wiping our runny noses, our sleeves were stained; we played until the dark erased the outlines of our faces.
The stains we brought home for our mothers’ care to clean.
Too young for school, we grew resentful of the setting sun.
Hiding spears and swords somewhere in the bushes, their location our secret, we hoped no one would discover them.
I dream about such things even now, and know that beauty has not moved a step onward from there.
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nbsp; E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 80
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r I Know the Heart of the Wildgoose
For the wildgoose, it is not the frosty coldness of the skies. What truly
causes pain, what hurts
even in the emptiness of air
is the crossing of rivers,
cutting across the river rushing
on, unstoppable as reason itself.
Such geese;
I know the heart of such geese.
Now by the side
of a sleeping child,
heaven’s own child
covered with heaven’s comforter,
I worry that the sound of my breathing,
worn down in life,
may yet be so loud it will wake her.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 82
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Without Title
In the end there is nothing that lingers;
it is all departing.
The waves, a boat,
those who ride above,
all gone off to a distant land.
Endlessly the world
becomes ruins that
accumulate, piling up
a tower of immortality.
How mysteriously
the numberless weak come together
to make the most powerful.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 84
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r On a Rainy Day
Now the drops of rain at the dark knife-edge of the cliff must be trembling as they fall,
and outside the swinging bead curtain, tall in the fog, I can sense it, the looming presence of the thief, and my anxious heart, as if a sash had loosened, so quickly does it draw so trembling close to my lover’s.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 86
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Tree
Look at the ceaseless
rippling of the
leaves in sunlight,
in the wind.
Beloved, are they
like the worries
let loose as a song,
the waves of your long skirts
that reach my dizzy head?
Love is an unquenchable thirst.
Though it may rise up
endlessly, as bubbles that vanish
endlessly into empty futility,
most beautiful one:
without the love brilliantly
swaying that tree, there would not be
much else to do in this world.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 88
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Autumn Sea
As if let loose from the song’s most exquisite note to reach some gentle hollow place where water drips, the autumn sea finds itself.
In their brilliance, gingko leaves
above my head at times seem to side with the sun, at times with the autumn sea,
brushing the dream’s edge,
while the illness inside me,
wavering toward the gingko leaves,
or trembling in the autumn sea’s direction, studies one way to sing.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 90
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Flowers on a Dead Tree
To learn the secret
why flowers bloom on a dead tree
I came all the way here.
But it’s all quite unfathomable,
like the reason a cloud blossoms
and then falls apart in the sky.
From the swelling breast of the bud
today, a magnolia painfully blossoms
while in readying for tomorrow
truly, a different branch bears.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 92
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Song of Death
Does it come gently,
like ramie cloth softly touching the cool skin, or as sunlight and wind hovering above the water?
Or is our death
sudden and frightening as a lightning flash, like a highway bus crash, smashing everything to pieces?
Friend, I know what the unhappiness would be, to have to leave behind the laughter,
the drinks, women, and the pleasures
of endless rounds of Paduk.
I turn away
and make it through reasonably well,
day by day; but waking at three
or four in the morning,
and pushing aside, just that much,
the wife and child who sleep beside,
I work over this death, how it
thrives, still, in its coating of fine dust, while I count the beaded necklace
woven of gratitude and shame.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 94
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Diary in Summer Heat
Not a leaf moves
in this ninety-degree heat.
In the shade, longing
for a bit of some passing shower.
The cicadas racketing away
like a burst of sudden news.
This heat
comes down like a spell
of anger: all I can do
is soak my feet in the valley stream
and listlessly wave a fan
to ease it; no more
playing like a child of six or seven
in the water.
A long way yet from being old,
with miles left of youth,
worried still that the road ahead
is not that far to go. I keep time
by beating on the steep cliff.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 96
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Flowers May Bloom
Flowers may bloom
but I cannot return home to see;
though all the world lies covered in its soft green, there’s nothing to be done where I cannot do as I wish.
It’s not that my life
is eaten away by debts
or stripped of its hours,
but I spend it, day by day,
struggling to put words into the squares
on the writing pad, or gazing
at the empty spaces on the Paduk board.
Those squares on the paper,
spaces on the board—of a sudden,
bursting, flooding in, the waves, alive,
shout Just picture your home! The voice flares up this mad midday.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 98
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Four-Line Poems 1
Brightness
At the water’s edge there is nothing but
sunlight that causes tears; wind; and air
that does so too. Child, when I bring you here, holding back tears I have nothing I can point to.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 100
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Four-Line Poems 2
With One Head
O cloud undressed,
you float always midair in my spirit.
My body has run off, so now, foolish,
I shall draw near you with only my head.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 102
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Four-Line Poems 3
Place
As you play the delightful melody,
your fingers trace between where strings are or not.
At this very moment there is no tracing
if my mind is here or not.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 104
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Four-Line Poems 4
A Song
Drinking apple and vegetable juice, I wonder how much it will clear my blood.
Seated in the shadow of high blood pressure, with no way to cure it I let my neck bend down.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 106
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Baby’s Foot on My Brow
Two-year-old Sang-gyu,
asleep now
after toddling perilously about
the alleyway and courtyard
all day; your pretty feet
that crossed over the huge sun
beneath their soles:
Here, just once try a step
on your father’s forehead,
steeper even than the gravel road.
Such soft, undirtied feet.
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 108
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r Asking Not Understanding
However intently I look,
stars to me
have no points.
They are simply, unsurpassedly brilliant.
My love, you also;
however I may seek to draw
you in my heart, I cannot capture the essence of what simply fills me.
Should stars be seen as the dew
for having a dewlike life?
Or love seen as a grass blade
for having a grasslike existence?
Truly I do not
understand this world
and so I ask:
What shape can a star be said to have?
What form does love take?
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E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r 110
E n o u g h t o S a y I t ’ s F a r What You Sent Me
Waters in the pond, rippling
as if about to overflow,
do not flow over, but weaving
patterns in the sunlight,
craft starlight jewels as well.
My love, just
what should I do now?
The tears that gather in your eye
about to fall do not fall;
