Five Sijo For My Raider (침입자를 위한 다섯 수의 시조)

By | 22 May 2011

A sound of hooves over the dry stones of my sheets at night

My arms are withered, my bones rise to the quivering world

In the space between our thoughts are three aching syllables

~~~

My almost lover, no photograph of you, no good-bye note

Enemy, you have raided my country, your handwriting floats

Downstream through the forest to the far walls of my kingdom

~~~

Your decrees are impulse, you enter without courtesy

And I become your dynasty, not knowing when to discern

Death, by the penitence of leaves, by the haloes of traffic

~~~

From the far east, when the river broke, came rumours of a tribe

I was alone that dawn, milking the soybeans, harvesting rice

With a bronze arrow you annexed my body to this design

~~~

Which of us abandoned the other? We cannot answer

How quiet the apartment: wind stirs, stars begin to shatter

Snow is a scherzo dancing over the words I’ve lost for snow

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