THE DANCE OF BUDDHIST NUN
Cho Ji-hoon
The sheer white-silk bonnet is folded neatly into a butterfly.
Her shorn blue head hidden under the bonnet;
the color of her cheeks pretty enough to make one sad.
In the night, as the wax-candle quietly melts on an empty stage,
the moonlight wilts on every leaf of the pawlonia tree:
her sleeves are long against the broad sky,
her stocking-foot, slim as a cucumber seed, lightly bends and is lifted,
as if to fly as she turns.
Her black eyes rise softly
to gaze on the starlight in a distant sky,
two drops on her peach-blossom cheeks smear.
Sin is starlight even in the toil of this mundane world.
Arms bending, wrapping about, folding then stretching, her hands
gather as if in a holy prayer from the depth of her heart,
At midnight even the crickets stay up,
The sheer white-silk bonnet is folded neatly into a butterfly.
Tr. Kyung-Nyun Richards & Steffen Richards ⓒ2013
미국, 뉴욕 맨해튼 소재 '시인의 집(Poets House)에서