At Dawn, and: The Wind Is Blowing, and: The Moment I Meet You, and: One Touch and I’ll Burst into Flame
Rent from DeepDyve- At Dawn, and: The Wind Is Blowing, and: The Moment I Meet You, and: One Touch and I’ll Burst into Flame
at dawn
At dawn you appear inside the dew, you gesture to me to follow you. If you call my name at the intersection of the first rays of the sun, I open a door that exists nowhere and enter the dew where the world is the place I dreamed of. The world transformed, larger than life.
the wind is blowing
The wind is blowing and flowers break into blossom all over my body. Is such a thing possible? In disbelief I call out to you and flowers, flowers, all the world’s flowers blossom on my lips, bloom on my body alone. Is such a thing possible? The wind is blowing. Fragrant perfume awakens the wonder in everything. [End Page 87]
the moment i meet you
The moment I meet you, at the moment God is resurrected, at that sacred moment we meet. Your right hand brushes away my sorrow, rolls open the doors of my dark, stony tomb.
one touch and i’ll burst into flame
It seems, one touch and I’ll burst into flame. Everything in the world is red-hot iron.
It seems, if a drop of water falls on me I’ll ignite.
It seems, if I see the letters of your name all the moisture in me will boil away. It seems, if I touch clay I’ll turn into porcelain.
This summer of burning. This midsummer of my life. [End Page 88]
Brother Anthony of Taizé has published more than thirty volumes of translations of Korean poetry. Recently, he published ten volumes of work by Ko Un, along with volumes by Lee Si-Young and Kim Soo-bok. Born in Cornwall in 1942, he has lived in Korea since 1980 and was naturalized as a Korean citizen in 1994. Brother Anthony has received the Republic of Korea Literary Award (Translation), the Daesan Award for Translation, the Korea PEN Translation Prize, and the Ok-gwan (Jade Crown) Order of Merit for Culture from the Korean government. He is also emeritus professor of English at Sogang University and Chair of the International Creative Writing Center at Dankook University.
Chung Eun-Gwi was born in 1969 in Kyungju, Korea. She received her doctorate from the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and is now an associate professor in the Department of English Literature at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, in Seoul. Among her translated works is the volume Ah! Mouthless Things by Lee Seong-bok. She received a Daesan Foundation Translation Grant for Korean literature and a translation grant from the Korea Literature Translation Institute (KLTI). She has participated in many KLTI projects.
