Celebrated Korean poems (25)

A Large, Soft Hand

Bak Mok-Weol (1916 – 1978)

A large, soft hand

extends toward me.

With five fingers

open wide

a vast ocean

comes surging toward me.

I had never realized

that the end of a human life

could be something

so full.

An arm rising again

beyond futility.

Flowing constellations shine.

On the edges of a clean neck,

the edge of the breast

each and every finger

that is a jewel,

a sign of a glance,

an omen of resurrection

bones aged white

rising again

chatter like grass blades

in wind and light.

Birds hovering,

whitely clustered

in fives.

Wings and cries

in the circumference of flowing constellations.