Jeong Ho-seung's poem (19)

Burdens

Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

• Published Dec 2, 2015 10:43 AM KST
• Updated Dec 2, 2015 10:43 AM KST

Half of my burden is made up of other people’s burdens.

If I do not shoulder other people’s burdens,

I will never be able to shoulder my own burden and travel on,

Even if I hurl other people’s burdens far away

every time I set out,

before I know it more than half the burden weighing me down is other people’s burdens.

Just as a blade of grass does not find dew burdensome,

I too had earnestly hoped that my burden would be light as morning dew,

but more than half the weight of dew is sunlight.

Now I lay down my burden and look up at the stars.

In the bundled burden I have so far carried and not cast aside

nothing at all of my own burden is left.

All that remains is other people’s burdens that I bore at last,

stumbling as I went along the way.

Jeong Ho-seung is a practicing Catholic and this poem explores a familiar text from the Bible: “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Being honest, he knows that we are not usually very willing to help other people bear their burdens, only thinking of our own burdens. The progression of this poem reveals that by bearing others’ burdens, our own burdens melt away. And in any case “more than half the weight of dew is sunlight.”