Lee, Hee Kuk is a Korean poet. Born in Seoul city of South Korea. He is Pharmacist and Adjunct Professor of College of Pharmacy, The Catholic University of Korea. He is a member of Executive of PEN Korean Center of PEN International. He published 5 poetry books. He won 4 Literature awards.
DAWN SEA
Looking at the night sea from a cruise ship,
A long-ago emotion sparkles on the black waves.
The father of someone, whose hand was amputated in a factory,
Someone’s mother, lying paralyzed.
A civil servant, who wrote his apology and explanation in writing while helping people beyond desk-bound duties,
The wind carried the story of two men and three women, barefoot in the middle of winter.
Carrying layers of scratches from all kinds of storms,
Floating, torn by the rolling waves,
A small boat.
I asked someone’s 16-year-old eldest son to buy him a life jacket.
“What is the most difficult?”
“There’s nothing difficult,”
His father was injured at work, and his mother collapsed while working day and night.
He said, “I’m so glad it’s my turn to work!”
The whip of the wind struck the back of my clumsy sympathy.
On a shabby boat, with no coordinates, on a pitch-black sea,
A boy rowing vigorously, with sparkling eyes.
The sea, where the waves rustled and crumpled,
I saw a faint light.
Dawn was breaking brightly in the distance.
WHEN CONFRONTED WITH A FORK IN THE ROAD
As hatred and resentment grow longer,
The mire deepens further.
Darkness swallows both body and mind,
And I see myself plummeting into the abyss.
The direction led by emptiness and forgiveness is
A path towards the light.
Though it’s painful and long,
The stairs of peace become brighter as one goes.
Inside me, hesitating at every turn despite knowing,
Live two hearts, good and evil.
To some, unnecessarily kind,
To others,
Excessively harsh.
The contradictions of those days, too late to regret.
Even if darkness might win at times,
I cannot surrender my soul and body
To the darkness.
Rather than the pitch-black night, I head towards the bright sun.
Prepared Angela Kosta Academic, journalist, writer, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, translator
