Picture: Namsook Han
Gabgol Munja*
Gabgol characters remind me of my haggard father
Old and weak from the passing years
His once grand frame
Now shrunk and gaunt
Rustles like dry leaves
His back, once straight like split bamboo,
Pressured by the decades
Is exhausted, and bent.
The marks of many years
Are inscribed upon his spine
Bending his body that harden day by day
He engraves time deep inside his body
Father has become scrawny and shattered
His long road, once traveled
With passion, is now dust
The journey deeply carved on his bones
His shriveled form
Shuddering in the cold wind.
Foot note: Gabgol Munja
Inscriptions on bone and tortoise carapaces
By Poet, Soonja Kwon, born in 1958, poetry 『A Thousand Tears』 etc.
Translatey Clara Soonhee Kwon-Tatum, Ph.D and Matthew Lewis, M.Ad b
