A single butterfly. It flies into the air. The grass opens its body.
Lee, Jai-Hun, poet from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm, shares his poem
Poet Lee, Jai-Hun was born in Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon-do, South Korea. He started his career by publishing works in the monthly magazine Modern Poetry in 1998. His poetry collections include “A Report on the Tribe where My First Word Lives”, “Become Pluto”, “Bug Myth”, “Biological Tears”, and “Stones are Thunder”. His books include “Contemporary Poetry and Nihilism”, “The Poetics of Dilemma”, “The Rhetoric of Absence”, “Signs and Surplus”, “Fantasy and Topophilia”, and a collection of dialogues titled “I am a Poet”. He is the recipient of the Young Poet Award from the Korean Poets’ Association, the Contemporary Poetry Prize, the Korean Poetry Prize, and the Kim Manjung Literary Prize. Currently, he is an editor at the SISASA and the Blue Paper, and a professor at Konyang University.
A Man’s Life
Hanging on a blade of grass
Tuk,
Fallen caterpillar.
Crawling on the asphalt.
Turning over to avoid people’s footsteps.
Belly dragging on the asphalt.
Having devoted whole life
To move its body in search of shade.
Late afternoon.
As the shadow fades
Over the torn caterpillar
Hard wrinkles form all over its body.
A single butterfly.
It flies into the air.
The grass opens its body.
***
남자의 일생
풀잎에 매달려 있다가
툭,
떨어진 애벌레.
아스팔트 위를 기어간다.
사람들의 발자국을 피해 몸을 뒤집는다.
뱃가죽이 아스팔트에 드르륵 끌린다.
그늘을 찾아 몸을 옮기는 데
온 생을 바쳤다.
늦은 오후.
뱃가죽이 뜯어진 애벌레 위로
그림자 잦아들고
온몸에 딱딱한 주름이 진다.
나비 한 마리.
공중으로 날아간다.
풀잎이 몸을 연다.
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