Going to the Square, Going to the Sea (Poet : Park Jaeung)
We are going to the square.
We are going as a river.
We are going into the candlelight.
Gliding and drifting, out of our darkened and damp back rooms,
Without anyone telling us to go ahead or behind,
After setting fire in our cooled hearts, one after another,
Thumping, thumping, we are running toward the den of darkness.
To the sea
Of the dark time, which our children had to face
with open eyes,
We are going, heartbroken,
Toward those butterflies that lost their dreams under water[1].
Even if we won’t be able to return from there,
From the rotten and deceptive world of thieves,
Even if we die confronting it with only our burning hearts,
We go to the square, because we can no longer “stay still”[2]
As we cannot close our eyes
To the truth drowned in that cold sea.
We shout, flapping the wings of the children who could never fly,
From the heart of the farmer that stopped because of a water cannon,[3]
With the faces of the workers imprisoned and fired.
You, thieves, you, robbers, you, darkness, can you see?
The candlelight
In the hands after hands of everyone,
From the cute, tiny hands of young children to the wrinkled hands of the gray-haired;
The river of candlelight, overflowing with wrath;
The sea of this square,
Where the lives burn only to flare up again and revive as new lives.
[1] This stanza refers to the Sewol ferry disaster.
[2] Students in the Sewol Ferry were told to stay where they were after the ferry began sinking. Although many of them did not follow this instruction and escaped to survive, those who obeyed the official announcement drowned.
[3] This refers to an incident in 2015 in which a 68-year-old farmer, Baek Nam-gi, was struck by a police water cannon while protesting during an antigovernment demonstration and died afterward in a hospital.
