Autumn Pain
Brother, with bloodshot eyes,
Helplessly wandered about the street.
Sister, her heart broken, cried silently in the corner.
Oh, my father, standing in the dark,
Only cleared his throat.
I too wandered about, lonely on that dark ocean.
Black waves, crying, crying against the shore of an island.
Fiercely sharpening their white teeth on the sand,
They bite and bite, but my despair remains.
In this world, very old and very worn,
The autumn sun fell, and in the wind, in the growing dark,
A dry leaf dropped and darkness came.
I endured, keeping the flood of tears inside,
Though anguish was written on my face.
Breathing the air of my old home,
Surrounded by familiar shapes,
Brother, sister, and father stand out
As small lights flickering
Endlessly in the wind.
Oh, I then knew that there were distances that never narrow
Between island and island in the fall-dark ocean,
The only things I knew then
were darkness, wind, and waves.
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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. and Matthew Lewis, MA