ANTHOLGY OF POEMS BY SEONG_CHEOL PARK , 'Three Stanzas on Silver Cats' Tails" (2001)

[취운재]

ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS BY SEONG CHEOL PARK(박성철 앤솔로지);


Poet's preface(시인의 서문); The Culture of Tae-Geuk(태극 문화)

I usually finish the daily routine by boiling water to make a cup df green tea. I enjoy green tea. Every Gok-Woo season of the year, Mr,Lee sends me the choicest green tea by mail. He grows tea plants in Hwa-Gye near Mt. Chi-ri. I put some green tea powder in the tea bowl and pour hot water over it. I stir it adequately with Cha-seon made by bamboo. Then foaming tea is made in tea bowl. It's really good to drink alone, I think. This foaming tea is the result of harmony between green tea, water and the tea-cup. Then I can enjoy its colour, sweet scent and meditative mood. This is the harmonistic wisdom from our ancestors. Early in history, before the Dan-Gun era, our ancestors cultivated the culture of the Tae-Geuk. Tae-Geuk has its own laws of movement in combination with Eum and Yang. After piling up the Um, spreads the Yang next, moving between the Mu-Geuk and the Tae-Geuk alternatively, it operates on all organic systems, living creatures and materials in heavens, the earth and man. We can say the Tae-Geuk is a symbol of natural law making rhythmical movement in the universe. Hwan-Ung, for man's benifits, established the nation Shin-Si, The oldest Korean nation, on the philosophical and the ethical basis, and leading people to a high life worthy of man. So, early in history, Korea was called a nation of a highly virtous men in the Orient.

Seong- Cheol Park
At the era of Dan-Gun, 4334,1.15.
In the Chiunzae, study room,


CONTANTS

*poet's preface
The Culture of Tae-Geuk - 4
*Critical Essay- Seong-Cheol Park's Poetic World- 100
* Three Stanzas on silver cat'f tails /13
* The Cat's in Seo-Gui-Po /15
* The Grove of Cats' Tails on Mara Island /17
* Railroad Crossing at Won-Dang Village/18
* The San-Zo of Cats' Tails /20
* The Nlght with The Oppressive Heat /21
* The Written Mutual Consent Between South and North Korea /24
* The Tea-Bowl Made by Wol-Pa /27
* A Tidal Flat /28


2. A Diary About The First Snow-Fall


* Song Of A Glow /31
* A Diary About The First Snow Fall /32
* At Gorebul Sea-Side /34
* The Penguin /36
* At Do-Gok Pottery /38


3. Flocks Of Birds


* Flocks of birds.11 /34
* // .12 /43
* // .13 /47
* // .18 /50
* // .19 /51
* // .23 /52
* // .25 /53
* // .35 /55
* // .40 /56
* // .43 /57
* // .44 /59
* // .49 /61
* // .50 /62
* // .63 /63


4. Picking Persimons

* Picking Persimons /67
* In The Afternoon Of The Day When Winter Begins /70
* To My Daughter /71
* Face.1 /73
* Face.2 /75
* Face.3 /76
* The Performance Of Vienna Phill. Orchestra /77
* The Glow In The Ganges /78
* The West Running Brook /79
*Chook-Ryung Ridges /80


5. Longing For Mother

* Longing For Mother.2 /83
* // .7 /84
* // .10 /86
* // .12 /87
* // .13 /88
* // .14 /89
* // .20 /90
* // .21 /92
* // .22 /93
* // .23 /94
* // .24 /95
* // .26 /96
* // .37 /97
* // .42 /98
-떠오르는태양과 함께-

** Three Stanzas on Silver on Silver Cats' Tails**


1
You are Jdnah's cry in fall
In the transitory sky above the Black Sea
Just like an illusion of the deadly Sun
You resemble purple flames at time
And,at other times, white-Blue thunder balls
That tear apart the black clduds veiling the sun,
Which are blocking Heaven's brightness.

You are the lamenting Parade accompanying a funeral,
Going along the road to
Tae-Jang-Mt. So-Baek.


2
You are old Assyrisn soldiers
With their hardened soul of Nineveh
Swaying to the rhythm of our faltering era.

3
You are the conscripted men.
And comfort-girls from Korea
Who were violated the Japanese Militarism
In the battle fields df Guam, Okinawa
And other island of the South Pacific,
So desperatelycalling out the names of their families.

Yoy are the art of fencing in hell
Whiring swords as skinny skeltons remain on the earth,

In the Autumnal winds of the Peninsula
You have come back to the tombs of the beloved
Buried inthe hillside of Yegogae,
Singing a mournful tune,
Silver cats' tails you are!
Silver cats' tails you are!



** The Cats' Tails in Seo-Gui-Po **


Sparrow!
Would you cone and live at the tail-end of the counyry?
Worms you live in the leaves of cats' tails, too
You eats dew drops, sing songs in the moonlight
Like an old singer from the countryside,
During the daytime,
You calmly yearn for peace within its leaves
Upon which the sun shines mildly.

Sparrow!
Do sing me a somg.
Though the sad wind rises from a part of the Pacific,
And blows on the in Seo-Gui-Po,
Do give me a song.
To pay tribute to the spirit of our country
For protecting the land of our ancestors,
From the Manchurian to Mt. Halla.
Calming down their qhite hearts
Touching their lives one by one
Just like the cats' tails scattered all around.



** The Grove of Cats' Tails on Mara Island **


The Wind lay sleeping in the plain of Mara Island,
It blew through the grove of cats' tails
and flew into the sky to its hometown far away,
It calls out to the Korean-draftees,
Students-soldiers, comfort-girls
And the King of Nippon's subordinates.

Calling a typhoon,
It spreads its wings
Though its body has died
Its soul sends its wishes across the sea.
So it blow ceaselessly,
Letting down its gray hair,
Over the plain of Mara Island.


** Railroad Crossing at Won-Dang Village **


I have moved onto the 2nd Dong, Ha-Mang
Going across a lailroad line at Won-Dang village
At time I don't even happen to meet
A sphinx Without my suffering steps
The railroad line, I should cross carefully is
Like the only one We cross in life.
While a train loading a destiny comes in
on either side of the railroad.
But I don't know When it goes by,
Anytime, whenever I come and go with my child
It shackles a riddle on my ankles
And asks if I know where my crossing spot is.
A deep, earthshaking moment as in a battle field
When my small body is swallowing up a fear,
The warder lifts a breaker mechanically
And finerly by the time I go over border in purgatory,
The train, as a monster, bursts into sound furiously
And goes round ferfectly the inside of the valley of Mt.
So-Baek
On the railroad Waves of heat is burning up over
Two kinds of question shine like the edges of
swords at execution ground.
The train goes out of my sight about a white-sky.



** The San-Zo of Cats'Tails **


You are
The Twelve-stringed instrument of Ga-Ya-geum,
That even Woo-Lddk couldn't play,
All the dynastic regrets of my country.
You shake and wake up in the white gourd
flowers during the night,
You are a sound which Norumi
Thinks df in the moonlit night,
You are silenced by the winds.

If the field of cats' tails are shinier in the
moonlit night.
It's because their life has been reinvigorated
With the ether of 28 stars from across the
universe.
At night when nature falls asleep,
The great history Gye-Cheon by Dan-Gun
Which we will sing about until morning,comes
into bloom
The field of cats' tails appears in the season of
the sleeping dragon,
And it part of the dream of the phoenix,
Phong Whong.



** The Night with The Oppressive Heat **


-Gazing at The Event of 'Oh-Dae-Yang'-


Due to my worry over the Oh-Dae-Yang
accident
I stayed up all night with nothing on as it is
oppressively hot,
Scratching my mosquito-bitten naked body.
I seized a fly-swatter in my hand
and my glance is that of Ahab's thirsting for revenge.

After I amplify my hostility with a murderous
spirit,
I aim at a bloodsucking-mosquito.
Kyung-Her was singing a song to perceive a truth,
And he made worms stick all over his body and
suck his blood
But I can't go and do what he did,
Before the heat of the three dog days are gone.

After having swallowed the blood,
In whose ser the white whale hiders its body
And sharpens his teeth with joy
In the five boundless oceans.
Do you know where he is?

Hot and itchy,
I couldn't sleep a wink lastnight.

Snap!
A winning hit full of wrath is struck.
But, What a wonderful creature!

The mosquito turning a somersault, vanished
out of radar sight,
I feel fearful that I can't Locate
The creature that is watching for my flesh at
every dead angle.
Blow fast! fast!
The thousands of wavers of the five oceans make
me dizzy
And the night-for is impenetrable
In this stuffy night,
Blow fast!
The green wind from the Heaven.
The green wind.....



** The Written Mutual Consent between South and North-Korea **


I cried while I watched the nightly news
The lasting regret forgotten deep in my heart,
An extinct volcano, having no sense,
Suddenly vibrates and comes back to life,
Eventually vomiting up buried history.

I cried, watching the news tonight
Because it reminds me of folks in the country
left behind,
Which is embodied by the couple divided by the
South and the North.
With both parents and their children having
wrinkled faces,
With the pupil harboring a grudge,
And it reminds me of the tragic Korean-War,
The sobbing figures of my brethen
With the remains of those who died in a strange
land in their arms,
And because it often reminds me of the grand
mother's figure on TV.
Who used to be used as a comfort-girl by Japan
while young,
Now, she cries with a bitter voice:
"Japan! compensate for my youth, my life!"

On December 13, 1991.
Seeing that two prime Ministers, in brotherhood
have consented
To "The written Mutual Consent"
And in grasping each other's hand powerfully
with a smile,
I hope that the South and North will be one as ever.
The lasting regrets forgotten deep in the heart of
history,
Surged to the surfaces again like an active volcano.
And at that time, I realized
The rainbow thriving in my eyelids has lingered for
too long.



** The Tea-Bowl Made by Wol-Pa **


In Bek-Ro season
I passed by a dew-laden gate
To see Wol-Pa in Se-Jae
Where I can look at the tea-bow1
Named "The Autumn Mountain" made by Wol-Pa,
God's creature,Wol-Pa was recreated picturesquely
dn it.
Giving a chance to the descendant,a change once
again to gain
The wisdom of things accomplished long,long ago.
Today,while I become familiar with the old aroma
of tea
Taking a seat opposite to your soul,
Wol- Pa's plain hand pours the stream of pure tea
Which turns into the string of Ga-ya-Geum
And that subtly lets itself hum a song, 'Dong-Da-
song',
A chant of admiring Korean tea by Cho-Euy.