Only from this distance
Have I come to look at you!
Oh Sowho
Oh Sowho is a Korean poet, translator, poetry reciter, and literary educator based in Gwangju, South Korea. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Chonnam National University and an M.A. in Korean Language and Literature from Honam University. She made her literary debut in 1993 through the Korean literary magazine Literary Space and gained wider recognition in 2001 when she was selected as a winner in the poetry category of the Mudeung Ilbo New Year Literary Contest. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Jomkkotmari (2005), Permeation, A Dot of Blue, Walking with My Schwabing, and her fifth collection, Meditating on Erik Satie and a White Stone (2022). She also published the Korean-English bilingual poetry collection I Am a Flower (2010). From 2001 to 2015, she served as an adjunct professor at Jeonnam Science College. She has also worked as a poetry recitation instructor, literary judge, translation editor, and university lecturer. She served as the head of the Korean-English Translation Team of International PEN Gwangju and has participated extensively in international literary exchanges, poetry exhibitions, and cultural programs. Her literary honors include the International PEN Gwangju Literary Award, Gwangju Literary Award, Digital Literature Prize, Kang Hang Literary Prize, and several other national poetry awards. She has also received multiple creative grants from regional and national arts foundations in Korea.
My Star, Spica
Only from this distance
Have I come to look at you!
On a spring evening, in the southern sky,
Deep within the constellation Virgo, my star burns with a blue-white light.
When you were close,
I never understood
That you were farther than I had thought,
That you were brighter than I had imagined.
Only now do I look at you
As one looks upon a flower,
As one gazes up at the spring night sky.
Could it be that even eternal love!
Can only be understood
After we have grown this far apart?
Like a meteorite fallen upon a desolate field,
Like a traveler entering an unfamiliar village,
At the observatory beneath Byeongpungsan,
I can finally gaze upon you
From this far away.
나의 별, 스피카(Spica)
이만큼 떨어져서야
그대를 바라보게 되었습니다
봄날 저녁 남쪽 하늘
처녀자리 가장 깊은 곳
청빛으로 타오르는 나의 별
곁에 있을 때는 몰랐습니다
그대가 생각보다 먼 별이라는 것을
그대가 생각보다 밝은 별이라는 것을
이제야 꽃을 보듯
이제야 봄밤하늘을 우러르듯
그대를 바라봅니다
영원한 사랑도
어쩌면 이렇게
멀어져서야 알게 되는 것일까요
황량한 들판에 떨어진 운석처럼
낯선 마을에 들어선 여행자처럼
병풍산 아래 별관측소
이만큼 떨어져서야
그대를 바라보게 되었습니다
***
Let Your Pain Go
Are you troubled by a purity that is too white?
Lay it down on the coral-white sands.
Are you weary of a greed that is too black?
Lay it down on the black sands of Geommeolle.
The waves are a sewage treatment plant,
Caring neither for what is white nor what is black.
The waves are the folds of a mother’s skirt.
고통을 수거합니다
너무나 하얀 순결 때문에 고민합니까
산호백사장에다 놓아버리십시오
너무나 검은 욕심 때문에 힘드십니까
검멀레 모래밭에 놓아버리십시오
파도는 하수종말처리장입니다
흰 것도 검은 것도 상관 아니하는
파도는 어머니의 치마폭입니다
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