Jeong Ho-seung's poem (33)

• Published Apr 13, 2016 2:15 PM KST
• Updated Apr 13, 2016 2:15 PM KST

Sudeok Inn

Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

Just once in a lifetime

take off your traveling clothes in Sudeok Inn by Sudeok Temple

and sleep a sleep such as has never once come in your life.

Flowers bearing no fruit will yield red fruit.

Even if you are unable to wake up the next morning,

for one night in a lifetime

sleep propped against the flowering quince tree at Sudeok Inn.

You will be able to see red flowers blooming again

on the fruit yielded by the flowers that bear no fruit.

If still there is a sleep that has never yet come in your lifetime,

drink a bowl of Sudeok Inn’s spring water.

Riding an elephant on the water,

all your melancholy love will go drifting away.

* * *

The temple and the inn are real places, but the experience evoked in the poem is visionary, a transformation brought about by sleeping for once in harmony with nature.