a lament

Invocation by Sowol Kim

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

O, name shattered.
O, name vanished into thin air.
O, name without response to my call.
O, name I will be calling till death.

You’ve gone before, I have said,
one last word etched on my heart.
O, my love nearest my heart,
nearest my heart.

The red sun hangs over the western peaks.
Even a herd of deer laments.
I am calling to you
as I stand on a lone hill.

I call to you till sorrow chokes me,
sorrow chokes me.
But my voice rings hollow in the vast void
between heaven and earth.

Should I turn to stone
I will be calling to you.
O, my love nearest my heart,
nearest my heart.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

The Widow’s Lament in Springtime by William Carlos Williams

/ zdunno03 / 7 Comments

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.