그대 순례
좀 느린 걸음이면 된다
갑자기 비가 오면
그게 그대 옛 친구이니
푹 젖어보아라
가는 것만이 아름답다
한 군데서
몇 군데서 살기에는
너무 큰 세상
해질녘까지
가고 가거라
그대 단짝
느린 그림자와 함께
흐린 날이면
그것 없이도
그냥 가거라
히말라야
회상은 짧고 공상은 길구나
내가 한 번도 태어난 적이 없는 곳
내가 한 번도 태어나지 않아야 할 곳
히말라야
누구 대신
그곳으로 갔단 말이냐
열 손가락 떨며 나는 갔다
수많은 어리석음들은 이쪽에 있고
저쪽에서
고도 8천 미터 정상 몇 개
황금빛 칼들을 쌓아올려 빛나는 것을 바라보았다
그 이전에도
그 이후에도 어쩔 수 없이 나는 고아였다
나에게 유일한 희망이 있었다
가능한 한 히말라야에서 멀리 물러나 있는 것
모든 성가신 질문들의 세상 그것이었다
이야기
이야기가 있다
이야기하는 사람과
이야기를 듣는 사람들이 있다
이야기 속의 숨결이
방안 가득하다
이것이면 다다
영하 40도 겨울 8개월
그 동안 젖 뗀 아이가 얼어죽었다
그 아이가 죽은 뒤
슬픔은 길지 않았다
곧 이야기가 있다
기도와 기도 사이
끼니때와
끼니때 사이
이야기가 있다
이런 나라가 온전한 나라이다
하룻밤
시가체 라체 사이에
저녁 천막을 쳤다
치자마자
비바람쳤다
천막이 날아갈 듯 요동쳤다
강기슭
물이 불어나
물소리가 커졌다
아까 물은 100도 이하
80도에서 끓었다
내 불안과 체념도 함께 끓고 있었다
벌써 기억할 수 없는 절경들이 떠내려갔다
물소리가 더 커졌다
이제 불어난 물에 떠내려가기만 하면 된다
아내의 얼굴을 기억했다
딸의 얼굴을 기억했다
진리 따위는 무척 싫었다
히말라야 시편
Ko Un
Listen to the original in Korean performed by Junha Shin:
In 1997, the Korean poet Ko Un and a few companions spent 40 days traveling rough through Tibet. They went walking over some of Tibet's highest passes, and he nearly died of altitude sickness. After his return he felt the continuing effects of oxygen-deprivation and could not write for a year or more. He finally recovered and composed a poetic record of his Tibetan journey, Himalaya Poems. It was published in Korea in the year 2000. An English version is to be published by Green Integer early in 2011. The poems do not follow his actual itinerary but offer a mosaic of impressions from the journey and his reading about Tibet. The poems are not highly complex but it is often hard to find an English style that is sufficiently allusive. The poet is often stressing the "otherness" of this Himalayan world, he does not sentimentalize it, neither does he bring any Orientalizing exoticism to it. Rather, we find evocations of the simple "thusness" of many Tibetan lives, in a kind of continuity with his monumental, 30-volume Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) about Korea lives. We are grateful for many very helpful stylistic suggestions made by the poet Hillel Schwartz, to whom we showed the completed manuscript. It is often helpful to have input from someone who knows no Korean, they can spot potential difficulties that we who know Korean do not even notice.
Ko Un was born in 1933. He is a world-famous figure, and has published more than 140 volumes of poetry and other writings, including the monumental, 30-volume Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) series. His work has been translated into every major language. An edition of English translations of poems selected from the first ten Maninbo volumes was published by Green Integer in 2005 under the title Ten Thousand Lives and Flowers of a Moment was published by BOA in 2006. A new edition of his Zen poems What? was published by Parallax Press in early 2008. A full selection of his poems, Songs for Tomorrow, was published by Green Integer late in 2008. His Himalaya Poems are to be published soon by Green Integer. Click here for his website.
Brother Anthony of Taizé is a contributing editor at Asymptote. He was born in England in 1942 and has been living in Korea since 1980. He has taught English literature at Sogang University, Seoul, for many years and is now an emeritus professor there, as well as a chair-professor at Dankook University. He has published more than thirty volumes of English translations of modern Korean literature, including eight volumes by Ko Un. His Korean name is An Sonjae. Click here for his website.
Lee Sang-Wha is a professor of English Literature at JoongAng University. Her specialty is utopias in literature and she has published a study of British utopian novels in the 20th century. She has also translated a number of literary works from English into Korean, including works by Gary Snyder.
