The Depth of a Landscape - Kim Sa-In

In gusting wind
short-stemmed plants shudder and tremble
yet no one pays attention.

Because of the solitary trembling
of one moment in the life of those slender things,
one evening of the universe finally fades into night.
Between this side and the other side of that trembling, in the gap
between the start and end of that moment, a stillness of
infinitely ancient former times, or maybe an infant stillness
destined to belong to a time that has not yet come,
is shallowly buried, visible yet not visible,
while within the spring sunlight of that listless stillness
I wearily long to fall asleep for a century or two,
or three months and ten days at least.
Then beside my infinity, bearing the name of three months or ten days,
butterflies or bees, insects with nothing much to brag of,
may heedlessly go brushing past;
at that, as if in a dream,
I think I shall recognize a familiar smell borne on those tiny creatures’ feelers or wings or infant legs
as your gaze that grew so deep in some other lifetime.

---

Kim Sa-In (born 1955) South Korea
Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé