To have weight
Is a sorrowful thing. The Ulsan Rock,
Which stopped while walking its given path,
Is sorrowful…
Gu Jae-gi is an acclaimed poet of South Korea
Poet Mr. Gu Jae-gi was born in Seocheon, Chungcheongnam-do, and made his literary debut in Modern Poetics (Hyundae Sihak) in 1978. He has published more than 22 poetry collections, including The Wind Between the Ramie Threads, Agricultural Psalms, In Search of the Sound of Water, and A Pavilion in the Pine Forest, as well as a selected poems collection titled The Cloud Sheds Its Weight as It Goes. He has also published an essay collection, Between Wildflowers and Weeds, Where People Live, and a critical essay collection, The Existence and Meaning of the Poetic Homeland, among others.
He has received numerous literary honors, including the Chungnam Provincial Culture Award, the Si Art Grand Prize, the Korea Local Literature Award, the Jeong Hoon Literary Award, the Shin Seok-cho Literary Award, the Korean Literature Award, and the Korea Culture and Arts Grand Prize (Literature Category). He currently serves as Vice President of the Korean Writers’ Association.
About Weight
About WeightTo have weight
Is a sorrowful thing. The Ulsan Rock,
Which stopped while walking its given path,
Is sorrowful.
To stop is to take one’s place by one’s own weight.
Ulsan Rock, settled by the heaviness of its body,
Stands still, endlessly sad.
Even a dandelion flower has its own weight.
With roots as tough, deep, and straight
As the weight of its bloom,
It endures the burden of its body,
And at last, blossoms and bears seed.
That seed, born from the heaviest moment of life,
Once it lets go of its weight, it becomes light.
The lighter it is,
The farther it can fly.
The dandelion seed,
Borne by the wind, together with the wind,
Lightly drifts over Ulsan Rock, beyond Seorak Mountain,
And lands softly on a wide, green hill by the East Sea,
Where Ulsan Rock can be clearly seen.
***
무게에 대하여
무게를 가졌다는 것은
슬픈 일이다. 제 주어진 길을
가다가 멈춘 울산바위는 슬프다
멈춘다는 것은
제 무게로 제 자리를 가진다는 것
울산바위는 제 몸의 무게로
자리하여 멈추고는 마냥 슬프다
민들레꽃에게도 무게가 있다
그 꽃의 무게만큼
질기고 긴 곧은 뿌리를 가지고 있다
그 뿌리로 제 몸의 무게를 감당하다가
마침내 꽃을 피우고 씨를 맺는다
생애 중 가장 큰 무게를 가진
그 꽃자리에 돋아난 꽃씨
무게를 버리고 나니 가볍다
가벼울수록 멀리 날 수 있다
민들레 꽃씨는
바람과 함께 바람에 실려
울산바위 위를 가볍게 날아, 설악을 넘어
울산바위가 훤히 보이는 동해 바닷가
너르고 푸른 밭 언덕에 사뿐 자리했다
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