After Son Kyae's Poem, "Wine and Women", and: A Kangnam County Woman
Rent from DeepDyve- After Son Kyae's Poem, "Wine and Women", and: A Kangnam County Woman
First sunlight settles upon burgundy-brown railings.I raise and hook the wooden shutters—
a thousand flowering lilacsweave a cheerless seasonal tone.
My face already powdered,but I remain, staring into a mirror.
Not wanting to leave the pavilion,an unfinished dream lingers in my mind.
Who raises parrots in a confining cage?I unbind the silk sashes, play a lute.
Lovely flesh-pink petals fall like feathers, wizened to dust—all that can be done is endure.
I cannot bear grasping the silver basinto wash my tear-stained cheeks. [End Page 65]
A Kangnam County Woman
I
South of the Yangtze, there's warm weather,iridescent satin, and silver pendants inlaid with jade.There, together, boys and girls gather water chestnuts—together, they ply their oars.
II
People say Kangnam is a joyous land—I live the grief in Kangnam.Year after year at a shallow port,longing for a boat's return, my heart breaks.
III
At the full moon's first glisten on our lake's surface,young men and women pick lotus seeds, return in the night's quiet.Do not approach the shore—even with hushed oars—mandarin ducks, surprised,might splash from the water.
IV
Raised in a riverside villagethe young know no parting.How could I know at fifteenI would marry a common sailor?
V
Weave a skirt of ruddy lotus,and a necklace of cream waterweed;we moor our boats on a sandy bank,await the frigid tide's ebb. [End Page 66]
Nansŏrhŏn Hŏ (penname "White Orchid") was a sequestered noblewoman who lived during the sixteenth century in Korea. Considered by many Korean scholars to be Korea's greatest female poet, she died at age twenty-seven.
Ian Haight has been awarded translation grants from the Daesan Foundation, Korean Literary Translation Institute, and the Baroboin Buddhist Foundation. He is the cotranslator of Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Kyun Hŏ, Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim and editor of Zen Questions and Answers from Korea (all White Pine P). His poems, essays, and translations appear in Barrow Street, the Writer's Chronicle, and the New Orleans Review.
Taeyoung Hŏ has been awarded translation grants from the Daesan Foundation and the Korea Literary Translation Institute. With Ian Haight, he is the cotranslator of Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Kyun Hŏ, Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim (all White Pine P).
