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Sunlight

Ko Un, Ko Un poetry, Buddhist, Buddhist poetry, Zen / Chan poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry by Ko Un
(1933 - ) Timeline

English version by
Brother Anthony

Original Language
Korean

Buddhist : Zen / Chan
Contemporary

It's absolutely inevitable!
So just take a deep breath
and accept this adversity.
But look!
A distinguished visitor deigns to visit
my tiny north-facing cell.
Not the chief making his rounds, no,
but a ray of sunlight as evening falls,
a gleam no bigger than a screwed-up stamp.
A sweetheart fit to go crazy about.
It settles there on the palm of a hand,
warms the toes of a shyly bared foot.
Then as I kneel and, undevoutly,
offer it a dry, parched face to kiss,
in a moment that scrap of sunlight slips away.
After the guest has departed through the bars,
the room feels several times colder and darker.
This military prison special cell
is a photographer's darkroom.
Without any sunlight I laughed like a fool.
One day it was a coffin holding a corpse.
One day it was altogether the sea.
A wonderful thing!
A few people survive here.

Being alive is a sea
     without a single sail in sight.

 

 

 

Themes

  Lover and Beloved
  Water
 
 
 


Recommended Books


Flowers of a Moment, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
Little Pilgrim: A Novel, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
Ten Thousand Lives, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
The Three Way Tavern: Selected Poems, by Ko Un / Translated by Clare You
What?: 108 Zen Poems, by Ko Un

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.