Black Port - Ch'on Yang-Hui

The tavern's red lamp bobs hoarse as if damp

and under the breakwater waves whimper all day long.

Because of the ever-changing waterways, or because of people,

the road that curves toward the port touches the village.

That road curving toward the port touches the village.

No one can ever take that road.

Now the sound of the water grows deeper

and a dog can be hard barking somewhere:

living like a dog, some evenings I long to howl like a dog.

Is it saying that someone is thrusting its world away?

Or, spinning about a flowerbed, that there's another place where the flowers long to bloom?

Looking back, I have transferred my whole day here.

Past the house with balsam flowers, past snapdragon flowers, past dandelion flowers,

past flowers of grief, past flowers of tears... flowers too have wounds... for wounds

are flowers!

Spreading all over the village, fearful flower colors,

and wandering among them clusters of drifting clouds:

perhaps it will rain tomorrow?

In one direction the sky is all black

---

Ch'on Yang-Hui (born 1942) South Korea

Translated by Brother Anthony

Source: Translations of Korean literature by Brother Anthony of Taizé