MOON TAE-JUN
Nacido en 1970 en Kimch'ŏn, Corea del Sur, es uno de los poetas más populares de su generación y es particularmente conocido por tratar con la naturaleza, la niñez y vidas frágiles en el límite entre la vida y muerte. Publicó cuatro libros de poesía.
Alguien vino a visitarme
La nieve que cayó en campanas toda la noche se ha detenido
Estoy solo mis pensamientos están lejos
Pequeña ave, ave de pecho rojo en el sarmiento
Llegaste y lloraste tu partida fue súbita
Por qué te has ido tan pronto no me has dado tiempo de llamarte por tu nombre
Tu lamento es terso, terso como luz de invierno al pasar por la [puerta empapelada
Quién es el que extrae ese llanto de mi oído
Alguna vez alguien vino a visitarme dejó lágrimas
Teñidas de rojo en mi corazón
Que nadie puede ya quitar
Versión del inglés de Eduardo Padilla
Algún día
Las libélulas se han ido del cielo
Mis manos están vacías
Manos que se sujetaron del tiempo
Una vez más, abro lentamente mis ojos
Mis manos están vacías
Camino junto a la severa lápida
Cómo puedo yo, un hombre débil, escrutar el diamante en el Sutra del Diamante El día vendrá
Así como las libélulas se han ido del cielo
El día en que seré gentilmente liberado de este lugar
A dónde han ido
Acaso siguieron al fragor del verano
Acaso siguieron al fragor del verano
Aterrizaron en el clamor de las gotas sobre las hojas de hierba
Versión del inglés de Eduardo Padilla
Pez plano
En la habitación 302, Hospital Gimcheon, habitación para seis,
ella yace con su máscara de oxígeno, peleando contra el cáncer.
Ella yace cual pez plano bajo y plano sobre el piso del suelo oceánico.
Me tiendo paralelo a su lado, otro pez plano.
Al mirar un pez plano al otro súbitamente sus ojos se anegan de lágrimas.
Se lamenta, tan delgada que un ojo se ha ido rozando hacia el otro lado,
y mira fijamente a la muerte mientras yo contemplo el mar de su vida.
Recuerdo su vida de océano, oscilando de izquierda a derecha, en los mares acuosos,
su sendero arbolado, con su canción de cucú al mediodía,
cenas de fideo delgado, una familia apenas dueña de una pared de adobe.
Sus dos piernas se están rompiendo lentamente,
su espina dorsal se dobla como rama bajo el peso de una nieve súbita,
pienso en aquel día de invierno.
Su aliento se hace áspero como la corteza de un olmo.
Ahora sé que ella no puede ver el mundo más allá de la muerte,
un ojo es arrastrado hacia la oscuridad del otro.
Izquierda, derecha, me mezo hacia ella para yacer a su lado en el mar.
Ella me cubre suavemente con el agua que inhala con su máscara de oxígeno.
Versión del inglés de Eduardo Padilla
"First" & Other Poems
MOON TAE-JUN
These poems have been drawn from the translation portfolio in the May/June issue of the American Reader, available here . They were translated from Korean by Chae-Pyong Song and Darcy L. Brandel.
A Brief Nap
When I wake from a nap
I become a tree that has seen flowers off
Several times even in one day
The spirit is abandoned in an unfamiliar place
Today I have dreamt again of frightened roe going backwards
Dream, a distancing dream of the day
Like a sister prone to tears who returns after visiting her mother
Waking from a nap I rinse my mouth with cold water,
I hear a pheasant crying in faraway vines, my fist clenched tight
In the afternoon I stand like a hollow tree
✖
The Ibis
Stepping in the mountain shadow on the rice paddy
the old ibis
stands still
A deep thought lingers on her body and passes
Like I once stared at an empty pond vacantly
Is this how loneliness lingers?
It was the evening when the mountain shadow fully wetted her ankles
His translations of Korean literature Chae-Pyong Song
One Breath
The space between flowers blooming and falling
We might call it a breath
The tree's cry makes flowers bloom
With another cry flowers fall
The space between blooming and falling
We might call it a breath
Even trees have lungs spread like flatlands
One breath and an ebb tide flows in and out
One breath and trees shake once in the wind
Father completes one sixty-year cycle, a life like the measles
We might call it a breath
Extreme Emptiness
I planted young radishes
but being lazy I missed the roots and stems emerging
I barely caught the flowers
white radish flowers were everywhere in the space
Did you plant the flower garden in the vegetable garden?
Neighbors asked and I hesitated to answer
After this conversation, one butterfly
and another butterfly along with the first
a flock of butterflies like white radish flowers
landed on white radish flowers
setting down their fragile feet
briefly for three or five seconds or
perhaps an even longer time to them
folding their wings, calming the wind
sitting comfortably
they seemed to sleep a light sleep
This place I gave away so they could set their feet
this knee I gave away so they could sleep a light sleep
I did not have such a place while living
Though my radish garden is a flower garden
at last, I lost even the flowers to the butterflies
Silent Word
In the temple yard peonies bloom luxuriously
Who opens the flowers' doors?
With a silent word, the flowers open their petals
The moment I attempt to say,
"opening petals swept by rain all morning," my tongue is cut off by
the rain
Bare Foot
A clam at the fish store pushes a bare foot outside its mud hut
sticking out its bare foot
the way the dead Buddha reaches out for the disciple who cries sorrowfully
Immersed long in flatland and water the foot has wrinkled up
When I touch its bare foot with reverence the clam
slowly withdraws as if having the first thought, as if having the longest thought
At that speed even time, even the road might have flown
Anyone might have gone out or, separated, might have come back slowly like that
Always barefoot I guess
As the bird having lost its love endures the night with beak buried into chest
so might the clam have endured sorrow with foot buried into chest
When the house cried for food
he might have gone out to beg barefoot, blistered
After all day in the street
perhaps he returned to the hut reeking with poverty
the house content, full of food
its crying stopped, quiet as darkness
At a River Village at Dusk
Even in my insensitivity I come to think of you sometimes
Sorrow moves like a mountain shadow across your eyes
A bird cries like an echo in a glazed pot but the river, a bigger pot, contains her
In the distance between you and me
between the darkness of this place and that of the village beyond
the river like a big round wheel flows
A cow cries at the village across the river
I cannot help the cow whose cries dampen the cold river with drizzle
Perhaps she just lost her baby or her love
I cannot help the cow who cries till her voice gets hoarse
I cannot forget the crying cow's white round eyes
Even in my insensitivity I come to think of you sometimes
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