Jeong Ho-seung's poem (52)
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One Night Reading a Braille Poetry Book
Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang
One night as I feel my way through a braille poetry book
beside my aged mother’s sleeping face,
one sleepless night as I read a braille poetry book,
aspiring to become someone praying with tears
rather than someone clenching fists in rage,
the stars descend and brightly read the poetry book with their fingers.
Dangling from their fingers, the poems shed tears.
The tears falling from their fingers wet the book.
All right, all right.
I resolve to stop hating Hope from now on.
I likewise resolve to stop detesting Hope’s cruel smile.
Even if the only way to love myself is the way of pain
from now I resolve to stop writing the letter
imploring Hope to disallow the pain I cannot endure.
Saying that love is like watering a tree every day,
one night as young stars at my fingertips
brightly read a braille poetry book.
* * *
The struggle to hope mingles with a bundle of fantastic images in which stars read poetry with weeping fingers and say that “love is like watering a tree every day.”