단감A Sweet Persimmon—장석주 시인

단감

단감 마른 꼭지는
단감의 배꼽이다.
단감 꼭지 떨어진 자리는
수 만 봄이 머물고
왈칵, 우주가 쏟아져 들어온 흔적,

배꼽은 돌아갈 길을 잠근다.
퇴로가 없다.
이 길은 금계랍 덧칠한 어매의 젖보다
쓰고
멀고 험하다.

상처가 본디 꽃이 진
자리인 것을,

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A Sweet Persimmon

The dried stem of a sweet persimmon is its navel.
The stump a vestige of the place
where once thousand springtimes passed
and where the universe gushed in.

The navel locks the path
there is no retreat.
The path is as bitter
as quinine on a mother’s breast
and the path is too long and rough.

Such is the scar of a fallen flower.

Footnotes:
Quinine was commonly used in 1950s thru 1990s when Korean mothers tried to stop  their children breast feeding when they become 12 or 24 months old.

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시인 장석주 by Poet, Chang, SeokJoo
The poet, Seok-Ju Chang, was born in Non-San, Chung-Cheong-Nam-Do, South Korea, in January 8, 1955.  His first published
work was “Midnight” that he received new and emerging poet award from Monthly Literature in 1975. In 1979, he awarded his poem, “Fly, Gloomy        Dream” inChosun Il-Bo, Spring Literature and Dong-A-Il-Bo, Spring Literature, Critique, “Existence and Unrealism”.

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Translated by Clara Soonhee Kwon-Tatum, Ph.D & Matthew Lewis, M.A