In the Field Filling Up with Snow - Seo Jeong-ju

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right–

the snowflakes fall in heaps,

embracing even the sound of baby pheasants and quails

returning to their nests.

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right–

the snowflakes fall like fluffy cotton,

embracing even the sound of young girls with rosy cheeks

returning to their nests.

It embraces even the sound of all the fortunes returning home,

the crying,

the laughing,

the burdened ones

now getting up strongly.

To the big ones, big tear traces,

to the small ones, small laugh lines;

the sound of big stories and small stories

returning home, whispering softly.

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right,

It’s   all   right–

the snowflakes fall constantly,

embracing even the sound of many mountains–

the Blue Mountains* returning home.

---

Seo Jeong-ju (1915 – 2000) South Korea

Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid

Source: Korean Poetry in Translation

*The Blue Mountains: mythical mountains located somewhere in China where a legend says all mountains originate from.