All night long, the spring rain leans
against the windowpane in a hushed voice,
erasing the names of flowers only to write them again.
Poet Dr. Lim Hayoung was born in Janghang, Chungcheongnam-do, and holds a Ph.D. in engineering, embodying a unique career that bridges both academia and literature. He previously served as a professor at Woosong College and is currently active as the head of Munye Village and the vice president of Culture & People, contributing to the advancement of literature and culture. He has achieved remarkable recognition in the field of poetry, receiving numerous prestigious awards, including the New Writer’s Award in the poetry category from the Daejeon Writers’ Association, the Contemporary Siseon Sidam Literary Grand Prize, the 2nd Poet and Culture Award, the 6th Nammyeong Poetry & Painting Exhibition Personality Award, the Sinjeong Literary Award, the UN NGO Literary Award, the Yun Dong-ju Star Literary Award, the Hall of Poetry Literary Work Award, the Kkeullim Literary Award, and the Korea Education Contribution Grand Prize, among many others. These honors demonstrate that his work has been highly regarded for both its literary excellence and social value. In addition, he has consistently engaged in creative writing, publishing poetry collections such as The One I Long for Within Me, Stars Held in My Heart, and Winter Story, as well as a Sijo collection titled Spring Story. His works are characterized by their delicate portrayal of inner human emotions, longing, and reflections on life, establishing a broad literary world that harmonizes modern poetry with traditional Sijo.
A Name Borrowed from Winter
All night long, the spring rain leans
against the windowpane in a hushed voice,
erasing the names of flowers only to write them again.
At early dawn,
at the end of a rain-soaked alley,
the wind, still unable to abandon
winter’s sentence, lets out a long, cool breath.
Those just in bloom
—before they can even ask why they have blossomed—
tremble, scatter,
and release their colors into the air,
becoming for a fleeting moment
a sentence of light,
then fading away.
Spring, as always,
arrives with doubt before arrival itself,
gently pressing the shoulders of the fragile,
measuring the weight of being alive.
The instant a single petal
turns over in the cold wind,
I come to understand:
the seasons are an ancient sentence,
completed by pushing one another away.
And so, this trembling now, too,
may be nothing more than a slender stroke of ink—
spring, borrowing winter for a moment
to inscribe its name more deeply.
***
겨울을 빌려 쓴 이름
봄비는 밤새
유리창에 낮은 목소리로 기대어
꽃의 이름을 지우고 다시 적는다
이른 아침,
젖은 골목 끝에서
바람은 아직 겨울의 문장을 버리지 못한 채
서늘한 숨을 길게 풀어놓는다
막 피어난 것들은
피어난 이유를 묻기도 전에
흔들리고,
흩어지고,
자신의 색을 공중에 풀어
잠시 빛의 문장이 되었다가
이내 사라진다
봄은 늘 그렇게
도착보다 먼저 의심을 데려와
연약한 것들의 어깨를 밀어보며
살아 있음의 무게를 가늠한다
꽃잎 하나가
차가운 바람에 뒤집히는 순간,
나는 알겠다
계절이란
서로를 밀어내며 완성되는
오래된 문장이라는 것을
그래서 지금의 이 떨림도
어쩌면 봄이
자기 이름을 더 깊이 새기기 위해
잠시 겨울을 빌려 쓰는
가느다란 필획일 뿐이라는 것을
_______________________
Read: Ivy – A Poem from Jeju Island
