The persimmon tree lights up scarlet lanterns
A universe within the universe
Scarlet, arriving at the heart’s core
Ah, how bright it is.
Ms. Im Sol Nae, a poet from Korea, shares her poetry
Hailing from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm, poet Ms. Im Sol Nae received the Newcomer Award from the monthly literary magazine Jayu Munhak in 1999. Her poetry collections include The QR Code of a Leaf, Amazon, That Transit Station, The Cry of an Awakened Amazon, Hong Nyeo, and many others. She has also received numerous literary honors, including the Yeongnang Poetry Award, the Korean Literary Critics Association Award, and the Korean Lyric Poetry Award, selection as a Sejong Excellent Book, the Poet’s Poet Award, and the Buddhist Literary Writers’ Award. She is a Vice President of the Korean Association of World Literature.
The Scarlet Light Universe
The Scarlet Light UniverseThe persimmon tree lights up scarlet lanterns on its branches.
Its black veins show quite an age.
From the earth, rooted deep, its energy spent time and again,
It rests every other year—this tree.
The slender twigs bearing scarlet fruits snap easily,
Yet they are unmistakably maternal—tender and strong.
When thunder roars and rain pour down in torrents,
The deeply soaked bark turns dusky brown—
The very skin of heaven’s people.
Each time memory meanders in twisted paths,
The hues of childhood flutter like feathers in a storybook.
Red—but not the red of passion,
Yellow-tinged—but not with youth.
A universe within the universe
Scarlet, arriving at the heart’s core
Ah, how bright it is.
***
Lungda
The peaks of the Himalayas stretch like barriers.
The Guge kingdom suddenly emerges
Over the barren earth.
The frescoes pour out light as if they were
Painted only yesterday.
The way to the Kailas, regarded as Mount Sumeru
Since thousands of years ago –
Somewhere on the path that goes like a string
The Grand Lama’s chanting of a sutra
Sitting in a meditation cave
Strikes my heartstrings.
Born as humans to be treated to a sky burial,
We, who had no tangible relation,
Today inscribe this all-important meeting
In the earth before we depart.
We bury here
The songs of the salt that runs through the desert,
The sobbing songs of the yaks,
The fluttering multi-colored banners of lungda.
And you and I, who are naught,
All scattered like clouds.
Places we cannot know, faraway places
We cannot reach
Scatter and spread in all quarters.
At the end of the puer tea field
Spreading endlessly
At the end of a sublime journey
We’ll hopefully return through prostration-prayers and
Meet each other on the ancient tea route.
Each time the wind blows, the lungda flaps;
Each time the lungda flutters,
The sounds of the bells of the tea-traders’ horses
Reverberate around our ears this day.
***
Ten Longevity Symbols Bedding
It was perhaps from the time I brought in a set of quilts Stitched with ten longevity symbols.
Every night heaven descended on my abdomen.
The lofty ten longevity symbols and
The ten gestures stitched with thin threads
Entered within me like golden cascades.
It was a genuine mirth.
I hear wind whiffling through the robust bamboo grove.
A new land emerges over my abdomen each night
When the moon swells up
While the long-necked white birds and
The pure things with crowns similar to brier shoots
Which hover over five-colored clouds
Evaporate in thin air.
It’s a genuine mirth again.
The bamboo grove’s wind snarls all night through.
The moment phoenix bodies touch in that vast space, I soar to a place higher than clouds.
The hundred-years-old red pine wails with its whole body.
The deep blue ebb-tide assails the vacant grain god.
The ten gestures pour within me like golden cascades.
Heaven descends on me each night.
And I lurch into the mysterious universe and Metamorphose into the ten longevity symbols.
Closing my two eyes tightly,
I get lost in that magic glory that unfolds each night,
I enter into the bamboo grove ceaselessly, a million times,
Where the winds arise.
I am born ceaselessly, again and again.
My thousand mirths began
At that time when I brought in the ten-longevity-symbols quilts.
***
Ancient Tea Route
The ancient tea route is where the sky descends.
The ancient tea route is where the earth soars.
The horse-bells in the inn-stable wake up the universe
Surrounded by cloud and mist
Wow wow the ancient tea route, the ancient tea route:
The origin of gold yarn and love
Wildly drifting.
Where heaven, man and earth become one
Where man, earth and the ancient tea route become one
When shall I come back to my gorge?
Wow wow the ancient tea route, the ancient tea route
Where the edelweiss waves its hand to the world beyond.
(Translated by Chang Soo Ko)
____________
