The sky and the earth are the lips of eternity.

There,

We live like a single word…

Siyoung Doung, a poet from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm, shares her poetry 

Poet Siyoung Doung, hailing from Korea, the Land of Morning Calm, graduated from the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Dongguk University and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Korean Language and Literature from Hanyang University. She further expanded her academic pursuits by studying humanities at Regensburg University in Germany. Her teaching career includes positions as a professor at Korea Tourism University and Jilin University of Finance and Economics in China. Her literary journey began in 2003 with her poetry debut in the literary magazine Dacheung. Since then, she has published numerous poetry collections, including Future Hunting, In Search of a Strange God, The Phone Call from God, The Eyes of November, The Carnival of Time (Anthology), Was It You, Was It Me, or Was It Longing?, The Scent of Secrets, Aria of Everyday Life, The River Flowing Under the Pen, The Magic Letters, and The Horizon Never Gets Wet. In addition to poetry, Doung has contributed significantly to literary research with works such as Roh Cheon-myung’s Poetry and Semiotics, Korean Literature and Semiotics, and Semiotics of Modern Poetry. Her exploration of literature extends into travel writing, with essay collections like Encountering Culture Through Travel and Encountering Travel Through Literature. Her literary excellence has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Park Hwa-mok Literary Award (2010), Poetry and Poetics Young Poet Award (2011), the Grand Prize at the Korean Buddhist Literature Awards (2018), the 32nd Dongguk Literary Award (2019), the Yeongrang Literary Award for Criticism (2020), and the 7th Woltan Park Jong-hwa Literary Award by the Korean Writers’ Association (2021). Most recently, she received the Literary Youth Work Award in 2024. In recognition of her contributions to literature, she was also a recipient of a creative grant from the Arts Council Korea in 2005.

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Image courtesy: The Korea Times

Like a Single Word

The sky and the earth are the lips of eternity.

There,

We live like a single word.

Like a ring worn without knowing

Whose hand placed it?

People live, fitted into the world.

Today,

I do not know where I am.

Just standing—

Hands engraving handprints,

Feet engraving footprints.

Life is finding a path in the void.

Birds know

That the void is eternity.

Living is the breaking of one boundary after another.

Life grows colder as it goes on.

The time they wrote

Abandons them in the end.

On a spring day when cherry blossoms befriend the wind,

Mountain-like buildings,

Valley-like alleys,

Water-like people.

People, worn by strangeness,

Save it sparingly, fearing they might grow used to it.

An angel slips between their lips,

And they take out a single smile.

*** 

한 마디 말처럼

하늘과 땅은 영원의 입술

거기,

한 마디 말처럼 우리는 산다

누구의 손에 끼웠는지

모르고 사는 반지처럼

세상에 끼워 사는 사람들

오늘은

어디 있는지 몰라

그냥 서 있는 곳

손으론 손자국 판화

발로는 발자국 판화

삶은 허공에서 길 찿기

새들은 안다

허공이 영원이라는 걸

사는 건 경계가 경계를 허무는 것

목숨은 갈수록 쌀쌀한 남

그들이 쓴 시간이 그들을 버린다

벚꽃이 벗하는 봄날

산 같은 빌딩

계곡 같은 골목

물 같은 사람들

사람들은 낯섦이 닳아

익숙해질까 봐 아껴 쓰고 있다

입에 드나드는 천사

웃음 하나 꺼내 본다