Jeong Ho-seung's poem (45)

Bricks

Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

Rather than being piled up high, they prefer to be laid out low underneath.

If they must continue to be piled up toward the sky

which is farther away than the ground

they’d rather be laid out underneath your feet

to offer anyone a firm footing.

Even if, one day, they are piled as high as the sky with you,

they do not want to be a wall separating the ground.

They do not, even more so, want to be a fortress or a fortress watchtower.

They simply long to be the chimney of our neighborhood bathhouse,

and from time to time they want to become a church tower

listen to the bright sound of a bell,

and become soft rather than hard.

Since all that is piled up must one day fall,

they would rather become clay than stones.

* * *

A poem evoking the deep humility of the common brick, which does not aspire to fame and glory or power, but prefers to be gentle and neighborly, soft rather than hard.