Jeong Ho-seung's poem (7)

A Blind Couple Singing

Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

Snow has fallen, night has fallen and we’ve lost our way.

Miles still to go and we’ve lost our way.

This winter night road, not even a snowman in sight,

nobody comes this way so we sing.

Only people going back from the world in the snow,

soothing the cries of the baby borne on the back,

miles still to go and it’s snowing hard.

To love what cannot be loved,

to forgive what cannot be forgiven,

we sing a song, waiting for a snowman.

We sing the song of all the waitings in the world.

The song turns into a path and outruns

the people walking along it in the snow, trembling in the dark;

the snowy path outruns them with no way of return.

Until beauty saves this world,

until from despair rejoicing comes by,

though it’s snowing hard and with miles still to go,

singing a song that loves indifference,

singing a song that waits for a snowman,

we’ve turned into this winter night road’s snowmen.

We’ve turned into snowmen that won’t melt, even come spring.

Readers are often puzzled to find no blind people in the poem. Instead, there is an echo of a well-known quotation from Dostoevsky, and a development of the theme of waiting hopefully for despair to turn into rejoicing, despair into hope.

The people singing here are not individuals, not simply blind beggars, but everyone who is struggling with the challenges of life, and the song turns into a path, while we all turn into never-melting snowmen of hope.