Jeong Ho-seung's poem (47)

• Published Aug 24, 2016 12:48 PM KST
• Updated Aug 24, 2016 12:48 PM KST

Chair of Forgiveness

Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

On my planet there stands a single chair of forgiveness

a single chair of absolute solitude.

And anyone who sits on that chair

can forgive and be forgiven.

It is not the chair that St. Exupery’s Little Prince

used to sit on at sunset on a tiny star,

and not the ugly wooden chair that the Ven. Beopjeong made

while he was living alone in a hut on Mount Odae.

Bit it is one small chair ― with a nail jutting out

so that you have to sit with your behind slightly raised.

And every time you sit on it, it emits a creaking sound of weeping ― that somebody made

then left for another star.

***

Forgiveness is far from easy, it costs tears and pain. The Christian gospel of redemption is here expressed as the uncomfortable chair-with-a-nail left behind by the risen Christ for each of us to perch over as we forgive as we have been forgiven.