In the early morning alley,

A paper tower sways as it moves.

Kwoun Jung Nam, an acclaimed poetess from Korea, shares her poetry  

Poet Kwoun Jung Nam of Korea, the Land of Morning Calm, received the New Writer’s Award from the literary magazine Poetry and Consciousness in 1987. She has published poetry collections including Sokcho Wind, A Photograph in the Drawer, The Way of Love of the Ash Tree, and Light Green Question Mark. She was awarded the Gangwon Literary Award in 2008, the Gangwon PEN Literary Award in 2010, the Gangwon Women’s Literary Award in 2011, and the Kwandong Literary Award in 2015. She has been a member of the Korean Writers’ Association, a director of the Gangwon Writers’ Association, the Kwandong Literary Society, and the Gangwon Women Writers’ Association. She also served as the president of the Gangwon Women’s Sankaechi Society and the Sokcho Writers’ Association.

Paper Tower

In the early morning alley,

A paper tower sways as it moves.

Newspapers, old books, and cardboard boxes,

Painstakingly stacked on a handcart,

A tower built with effort,

Dragged along as if it might collapse—

Stronger and more sacred than a stone pagoda.

A small elderly figure,

Hat pressed down over a bent back,

Has no face.

Like a warrior piercing through the fierce wind,

Past the utility pole, around the corner by the store—

The sacred tower rises, step by step.

That ascetic, pulling infinite time and space,

Awakens the morning, polishes the world like a mirror.

Reverently, like a Buddha, he carries the tower’s spirit,

Plodding along,

Pilgrimaging the icy streets of his holy land.

***

종이 탑

새벽 골목길

종이 탑이 흔들리며 간다

손수레 위에 힘겹게 쌓아 올린

신문지와 헌책, 종이박스들

무너질 듯 끌려가는 공든 탑이

돌탑보다 단단하고 성스럽다

굽은 허리에 모자 눌러쓴

키 작은 노인 얼굴이 없다

전사戰士처럼 세찬 바람을 뚫고

전봇대 지나 슈퍼 앞을 돌고 나면

거룩한 탑은 한 칸씩 올라간다

무한 시공을 끌고 가는 저 수행자

아침을 깨우고 세상을 거울처럼 닦으며

부처처럼 정중히 탑신을 모시고

타박타박

빙판길 성지를 순례하고 있다.

_________________ 

Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"