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Farmers' Dance
Shin Gyeong-nim (1935 - )
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The ching booms out, the curtain falls.
Above the rough stage, lights dangle from a paulownia tree;
the playground's empty, everyone's gone home.
We rush to the soju bar in front of the school
and drink, our faces still daubed with powder.
Life's mortifying when you're oppressed and wretched.
Then off down the market alleys behind the kkwaenggwari
with only some kids running bellowing behind us
while girls lean pressed against the oil shop wall
giggling childish giggles.
The full moon rises and one of us
begins to wail like the bandit king Kokjong; another
laughs himself sly like Sorim the schemer; after all
what's the use of fretting and struggling, shut up in these hills
with farming not paying the fertilizer bills?
Leaving it all in the hands of the women,
we pass by the cattle-fair,
then dancing in front of the slaughterhouse
we start to get into the swing of things.
Shall we dance on one leg, blow the nallari hard?
Shall we shake our heads, make our shoulders rock?
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