Forty: “The Age When You Won’t be Tempted”[1]
A swan
Kneels only twice:
Once at birth, once at death.
Only those two times.
I wonder if I might have
Knelt down too often in my life.
[1] “The age when you won’t be tempted” is Confucius’ description of age 40.
Lee, San-ha 1987, when he was active in the propaganda of Democratization Movement Youth Union, Lee San-ha announced the epic poem, which reveals the genocide and truth of ‘Jeju 4 · 3
Translated by 전승희 Seung-Hee Jeon
(literary critic and translator, editor of Asia: A Magazine of Asian Literature)
