Trilingual Renshi

SEA


1         

Three girls with black hair and black eyes
carrying suitcases on the pier of Piazza San Marco.
I wonder where they come from? Silent, they are
like three seagulls, hard to tell one from the others.
Hey, let us hear your voices!

(Yasuhiro)


2          

Ariel hums a little song, the sea wind carries her tune
to a cafe, where a white-haired man looks up
and sees the three sisters, poplar shadows in his eyes

(Mindy)


3          

A pitch-dark night, even the seagulls are asleep
The children are leaving, dragging along their suitcases
Everyone’s asleep except for the children
From the western pier, a ferry departs secretly
For a year, same departing children, same ferry, same clouds, same sky.

(Hyesoon)


4         

The Noah’s Ark we boarded in our previous lives
now lies rotten on the ocean floor.
After all, it couldn’t get out of the earth…

(Shuntaro)


5         

Each time I write a poem I climb up to the moon, and sit
at the bottom of Tranquility, looking down on my home,
trying to see the red of blood hidden in that cold blue.
It’s the sea that separates us from each other,
the same sea that connects us to each other

(Yasuhiro)


6
               
Tonight the sky is a dark cabin—
we’re awake, our eyes each a new moon
sailing to a Sun Republic

(Mindy)


7          

Perched on a power line, the birds’ wings are wet
Cherry blossoms fall like fi ngernails scratching a door that won’t open
Above the faraway mountain, the drenched sun becomes heavy
Someone made of ocean stands outside the window
That someone can’t be held, so thin like the morning fog

(Hyesoon)   


8         

What kind of software application designed plankton?
The boy lets his mind wander for a moment, his eyes away from the microscope.
He wants to dream about the world without using the word ‘God’.

(Shuntaro)


9          

Words travel—as shadows. Apples sing—
iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes—stir the oceans.
Hurricanes and tsunamis. Then all is quiet, quiet. Ariel sisters
guard their speeches in golden corals. Above the deep water,
words travel again, as fi shes, over the salty waves and seaweed.

(Mindy)


10          

Hokusai’s Suruga Bay gazed upon through the window.
Mouthful of Norimaki at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Clouds in the heart remember the taste of the tears rolling down on her cheeks…

(Yasuhiro)


11      

The temperature of Neptune, categorized as ‘ice giant’, is
minus 218 degrees Celsius at its cloud tops, and
5,000 degrees at its center. I, with a body temperature of 36.5 degrees,
in a 21-degree room on planet Earth,
as of 16 minutes past 12 o’clock on the 7th of April, am still alive (^^)!

(Shuntaro)


12          

I pour Neptune’s sea on top of my desk
When our fi rst round of poems is fi nished, the lights go out at the cosmos station
I sit in my chair and dip my hands into the pitch-black ocean

(Hyesoon)


RICE


13          

As the ocean spills into the rice fields, a dolphin flies up,
its huge mouth hoarding rice.
It flies—white diffuses the low sky.
It flies—a woman is on the run—she wants to hide the rice (米)
for the children before the sun rises.

(Mindy)


14          

A grain of cooked rice is hanging
from the tip of the beard of Chinese character ‘父(father)’,
like a little god who got lost.

(Yasuhiro)


15          

The scarecrow who kept his dignity of being one-legged
finished his role as a crow chaser,
spending the rest of his life in a museum of ethnology in a foreign place.
He’s got no sky, unlike on the terraced rice-fields.
Three schoolboys are pressing their faces to the glass showcase.

(Shuntaro)


16         

We are the flesh and blood of rice, like the flesh and blood of the stars
How is it that crimson blood fl ows when I’ve only swallowed a single grain of white rice?
Children who’ve departed to a place where they won’t be eating rice anymore shimmer like stars

(Hyesoon)


17          

Rice was scarce. Even the skies closed down.
Tsvetaeva was rejected, again.
She looked thinner than a bird, her eyes sunken...
I wake up startled, and see nine moons above me—
nine goddesses offering nine bowls of rice to her starved orphan...

(Mindy)


18          

A handful of rice in the bowl of a young mendicant priest.
Sunlight falls on fresh leaves.
He walks along a crumbling mud wall.

(Shuntaro)


19          

Never stand still, so my master taught me in a foreign land.
Across the fortress walls, through the peninsula, and over the straits,
the path lies in the very act of walking, he said.
Chewing the distant sweetness carried by grains of rice, I came down from the pass
—the familiar festival band of whistles and drums.

(Yasuhiro)


20          

After the cherry blossom parade has passed by, a paper bowl under the tree eats white petals
It’s been a while since my family of three has eaten rice from bowls set on the manhole-cover-like kitchen table
Above our heads the sky opens its mouth, and beneath our feet the sewer opens its mouth

(Hyesoon)


21         

Manna the food whose name means ‘what is it?’ in Hebrew.
If human beings are such that they feel hungry even with their stomachs full,
that hunger is caused by the question called ‘Manna’,
although the boy, for whom just one rice ball was worth a jewel after the defeat of the war,
found physical hunger more real than spiritual hunger.

(Shuntaro)


22 
        
Mom told me not to blindly believe the history textbooks,
but what about my great grandfather’s diary?
The next few pages are sealed with glue made of boiled rice.

(Yasuhiro)


23         

When I drink water, the water drinks me
When I eat rice, the rice eats me
When I breathe in oxygen, the oxygen eats me
The more I eat the more my body is glued to the ground
The prisoner in a cell mashes rice to make Buddha

(Hyesoon)


24          

Shennong, god of five grains, fertilized mountains with sunlight
from his eyes. He planted rice and died of rice, planted herbs and died of herbs.
My grandma buried him a thousand times and on his body planted an apple tree.

(Mindy)


SUN


25          

The national flag of Japan is called Hinomaru (a sun disk).
A so-called ‘Good Design’ with just a crimson circle on the white background.
It looks so innocent that it might have been conceived of by a child,
but its appearance is deceiving: it’s ominously multicolored, unlike the five colors of the Olympic rings.
I will never ever wave the flag.

(Shuntaro)


26          

It was the day of the festival of the sun at Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco
I said hi in the morning of the winter solstice to Seoul’s night in the summer solstice
The starting line of the 365-day long marathon was teeming with Indians

(Hyesoon)


27          

The singing voices of the wandering Peruvians mix together
with Jingle Bells from the shop front of a confectioner’s.
The man wraps himself in all 5 national newspapers
and lies down in the hollow of the lined-up buildings…he knows
that spot will get the first ray of the morning sun (Asahi).

(Yasuhiro)
     

28         

There is a lion in Latin American jungles that swings its golden hair.
In Spain, Lorca saw a golden sun (日) before he closed his eyes.
He held a stream of light as if holding the string of an ancient peaceful kite.

(Mindy)


29 

How painful the light must be for the owl
How painful the light must be for the bat inside a cave
How painful the light must be for the girl hiding in the attic
Outside, the army of fire marches towards me with its golden mane
How frightened I must be, clutching onto the last morning star

(Hyesoon)


30         

A click, and the rainbow caught on a display loses its color.
“Photography shouldn’t flirt with color, just light and shadow is enough”
declares the silver-haired female photographer to her young assistant.

(Shuntaro)


31
        
When the world was still young
Nüwa gave birth to ten suns, of ten colors and ten genders.
They played around in the air like warlords and feverishly burnt all the fl ying birds.
A boy-girl, a bow and ten arrows in hand, split nine of the suns
into nine oceans and nine volcanic mountains…

(Mindy)


32         

An ant is crawling on a sundial
from day to night, dragging the wing of a butterfly.
A treat for the little ones underground.

(Yasuhiro)


33         

In the sign language classroom a light rings instead of a bell
The light rings at the end of class and also at lunch
A soccer referee runs over and politely makes a foul call
When the referee who was staring at his watch raises the fl ag at the end of the game
the winning and losing teams, the referee and spectators make butterfl ies with theirs hands and
release them into the sunlight

(Hyesoon)


34         

Any scene when viewed through the window pane looks poetic,
reflects the tyrant as he gives the finishing touch to his speech.
On the waves of the sea of people who hate him, the lenses of their glasses glitter.

(Yasuhiro)


35         

With his monocle, my uncle chases a Chinese jar.
I put on two slices of cucumber to chase after him. Through the pin holes of insect bites
I see a sunflower that leads the way, bringing me to the Yangtze River instead—
Qu Yuan had jumped from here… I’ve brought bamboo leaves fi lled with sticky rice.
He stands up, beaming, his left eye Venus, his right eye a lotus.

(Mindy)


36          

Blown by the winds of the era and burned by the ancient lights,
our mandala still resists with poetry against the world’s entropy.
The evening sun here is the morning sun over there Good night and good morning move towards
tomorrow in a spiral.

(Shuntaro)

Trilingual Renshi

Trilingual Renshi

海の巻 / 海之卷 / 바다


1         

サンマルコ広場の波止場でスーツケースを引き摺る
三人の娘たち　黒い髪　黒い眼
どこから来たのかな？ 黙っていたなら
三羽の鴎みたいに区別がつかない
ねえ、声を聴かせて

(康)


2          

爱丽尔哼起一支曲，海风把声音传送
至咖啡馆，一位白发男子抬头
看见三姐妹，白杨树影在他眼中晃动

(迪)


3          

갈매기도 잠든 깜깜한 밤
아이들이 슈트케이스를 끌고 떠나고 있다
모두 잠들었는데 아이들만 깨어 있다
서쪽 부두에서 아무도 몰래 배가 출항하고 있다
일 년 째 같은 아이들, 같은 배, 같은 구름, 같은 하늘이 떠나고 있다.

(惠)


4         

前世で乗っていたノアの方舟
今は海底で朽ち果てている
結局地球の外には出られなかったのだ

(俊)


5         

詩を書くたびに僕は月へ昇り
静かの底に座ってわが故郷を見下ろす
その冷たい青に秘められた血の赤に目を凝らして
海が僕らを互いから分け隔て
海が僕らを互いに結び付けている 　

(康)


6
             

 
今晚，天空是黯淡的船舱——
我们醒着，眼睛是一只只新月
驶向彼此共和的太阳

(迪)


7          

전깃줄 위 새들의 날개가 젖어 있다
열리지 않는 문을 긁어대던 손톱들처럼 벚꽃잎이 지고 있다
먼 산 위의 태양이 흠뻑 젖어 무거워지고 있다
바다로 만든 사람이 창문 밖에 서 있다
새벽 안개처럼 얇아 안을 수 없는 사람이다

(惠)   


8         

プランクトンはどんなソフトでデザインされたのだろう
顕微鏡から目を離していっとき放心している少年は
神という言葉を使わずに世界を夢想したいのだ

(俊)


9          

文字穿行——如影子。苹果高歌——
iPhone,iPad,iPod,iTunes——掀动海底。
飓风，海啸。然后是寂静，寂静。爱丽儿姐妹们
将语言藏于金色的珊瑚中。深水之上，
文字再次启程，如鱼群，穿行于有咸味的海浪与海草。

(迪)


10          

窓から見下ろす北斎の駿河湾
高度３万フィートで頬張る海苔巻き
あの人の頬伝う涙の味を思い出している心の雲……

(康)


11
         
巨大な氷惑星と呼ばれている海王星の
表面温度は摂氏マイナス２１８度
中心温度は５０００度
体温３６度５分の私は地球上の室温２１度の部屋で
４月７日１２時１６分現在 生存中で〜す

(俊)


12          

나는 책상 위에 해왕성에서 온 바다를 쏟는다
한 편의 시가 끝나자 우주 정거장의 불은 꺼졌다
나는 의자에 앉아 그 깜깜한 바닷물 속에 두 손을 담근다

(惠)


米の巻 / 米之卷 / 밥


13          

海水涌进稻田，一只海豚飞起
巨大的嘴，囤积稻米
它飞起，白色弥漫低矮的天空
它飞起，一个女人在奔跑——她要在太阳升起之前
把米藏好，留给那些孩子们

(迪)


14          

ごはんつぶがひとつ、「父」
という漢字のあごひげのさきっぽにくっついている
まいごのちいさなかみさまみたいに

(康)


15          

一本脚の威厳を保っていた案山子は
鳥追いの役目を終えて
異郷の民族学博物館で余生を過ごしている
棚田と違ってそこには空がない
小学生が三人ガラスケースにへばりついている

(俊)


16         

우리는 별의 혈육이듯 쌀의 혈육이다
흰 밥알을 삼켰을 뿐인데 어째서 빨간 피가 돌까?
밥을 먹지않는 곳으로 간 아이들이 별처럼 빛났다

(惠)


17          

大米稀缺。连天空都关闭了。
茨维塔耶娃又一次被拒。
她看上去比一只鸟还瘦，眼窝深陷……
我惊醒，看见头顶有九个月亮，
九个月神端着九碗白米饭，伸向快饿死的孤儿……

(迪)


18          

若い僧の托鉢の椀に一握りの米
若葉が日の光に輝いている
崩れかかった土塀に沿って歩いてゆく

(俊)


19          

決して立ち止まるなと異国の師は僕に教えた
城壁を越え半島を抜け海峡を渡り
道は自らの歩みのなかにこそあるのだと
米粒に託された遠い甘さを噛みしめながら峠を降りると
懐かしい祭囃子の笛太鼓

(康)


20          

벚꽃 축제행렬이 지나간 뒤 나무 밑의 종이 사발이 흰 꽃을 먹고 있다
오랜만에 우리 식구 셋이 맨홀 뚜껑 같은 식탁 위에 그릇을 올려놓고 밥 먹는다
우리의 머리 위엔 하늘이 입을 벌리고, 우리의 발밑엔 하수구가 입을 벌리고 있다

(惠)


21         

マナ　ヘブライ語で〈これは何だろう〉という名の食べ物
満腹した後にまだ飢えているのが人間だとしたら
その空腹は〈マナ〉という疑問のせいなのだ
たった一つのお握りが宝石だった敗戦後の少年には
魂の飢えよりも肉体の飢えのほうが切実だったが

(俊)


22 
         
ママは歴史の教科書を鵜呑みにしちゃだめよって言ったけれど
曾お祖父ちゃんの日記はどうなんだろう？
その次の数ページはご飯を煮て作った糊で閉じられている

(康)


23         

내가 물을 마시면 물이 나를 마신다
내가 밥을 먹으면 밥이 나를 먹는다
내가 산소를 마시면 산소가 나를 먹는다
내가 먹으면 먹을수록 내 몸이 땅에 들러붙는다
감옥의 죄수가 밥알을 뭉개어 부처를 만든다

(惠)


24          

神农，五谷大帝，用眼中的阳光
给群山施肥，他种稻子，死于稻子，种草药，死于草药。
我奶奶埋葬他一千次，在他身体上种下一棵苹果树。

(迪)


太陽の巻 / 日之卷 / 태양


25          

日本では国旗を日の丸と呼ぶ
白地に真紅の円だけのグッドデザイン
まるで子供が考えたかのような無邪気さだが
含意は五輪の五色どころではない色々
旗振りなど金輪際したくない

(俊)


26          

쿠스코의 삭사이와만에서 태양의 축제가 있는 날이었다
나는 동지의 아침에서 하지의 서울의 밤에게 안녕 인사했다
365일 동안 계속될 마라톤 코스의 출발선에 인디오들이 가득했다

(惠)


27          

さまよえるペルー人たちの歌声が
ケーキ屋の店先のジングルベルと混じり合っている
男は全国新聞五紙を身体じゅうに巻きつけて
立ちはだかるビルの隙間に身を横たえる　彼は知っているのだ
そこが最初に<朝日>の射しこむ場所であることを

(康)
     

28         

一头拉美丛林的狮子站起，摇一头金色的头发。
洛尔迦在西班牙倒下，低头之前看见一个金色的太阳。
他抓住一根光线，仿佛牵住了一只古时候的和平风筝。

(迪)


29 

올빼미는 저 빛이 얼마나 아플까?         
동굴 속 박쥐는 저 빛이 얼마나 아플까?
다락방에 숨은 소녀는 저 빛이 얼마나 아플까?
밖에서는 불의 군대가 금빛 갈기를 앞세우고 행진해 오는데
새벽의 마지막 샛별을 움켜쥔 나는 얼마나 무서울까

(惠)


30         

ディスプレーに捉えられた虹がクリック一つで色を失う
「写真に色は要らない、光と影だけでいいの」と
銀髪のカメラウーマンは若い助手に向かってのたまう

(俊)


31
        
世界年轻时，女娲生下十个太阳
十个太阳十种颜色，十种性别
他们在空中玩耍，如同军阀，他们的狂热烧死了所有的飞鸟
一个女-男孩，手握一把弓，十支箭
把九个太阳射开，分割成九个海洋，九座火山……

(迪)


32         

日時計盤の上を蟻が這ってゆく
昼から夜へと　蝶の翅を引きずりながら
地底の子等へのご馳走に

(康)


33         

수화 교실에선 소리 대신 빛으로 종을 친다
수업이 끝나는 시간도 점심시간도 빛으로 종을 친다
축구의 파울은 심판이 뛰어와서 친절하게 알려 준다
손목시계를 들여다보던 심판이 게임의 종료 깃발을 높이 들어 올리면
이긴 팀도 진 팀도, 심판도 관중도 두 손으로 나비를 만들어 햇빛 속에 날린다

(惠)


34          

窓ガラス越しに見下ろすとどんな風景も詩的に見える
と演説の原稿を仕上げながら独裁者は思う
彼を憎む人々の海の波間に眼鏡のレンズがきらきら瞬いている

(康)

35         

我叔叔戴着单片眼镜追一只中国坛子，
我戴两片黄瓜追他。从两个被虫咬开的洞
我看见一朵太阳花引路，把我引到长江边——
屈原曾从这里跳下去，我给他带来两千个粽子。
他站起来目光炯炯，左眼金星，右眼荷花。

(迪)


36          

時代の風にあおられ古代の光に灼かれながらも
私たちの曼荼羅は詩で世界のエントロピーに抗う
こっちの夕日はそっちの朝日　お休みとお早うは螺旋状に明日へと向かう

(俊)