(337) Will spring come in the lost field?
By Janet Shin The summer heat is still scorching but time keeps passing and the chirping of crickets, a symbolic messenger of autumn, wakes us up in the morning, which relieves our nerves from the endless heat wave this year. In a way, this is what saju tries to teach us. Namely, by knowing or conforming to the order of Heaven (知天命), the principle that rules all things, the changing of seasons and phenomena within it, humans can reach ultimate wisdom, by which they can also find peace. The Korean Peninsula achieved its independence on Aug. 15, 1945, after the Japanese occupation (1910-45). Korean poet Lee Sang-hwa (1901-1943) wrote of the desperate awareness of the Korean people about the occupation in his poem, “Will spring come in the lost field?” A sense of futility, anguish and resistance is expressed in this poem, but there indeed was a fervent hope that spring, implying the day that the Korean people would take their land back, a day of true liberation, would eventually come just as the season takes its place according to the order of the universe.&nb
Aug 18, 2016
