baby started to cry.
Its mother muffled the sound
swaddling the baby in a blanket.
Finally they were safe.
The guide, once paid, vanished.
On the sodden ridge, scratched by the brushwood,
they all sighed with relief in the rain.
Weâre alive, they gasped.
Weâve made it,.
The blanket muffling the baby was unwound.
The one-year-old
was dead, suffocated.
The mother shook her dead baby.
She shook it
and wailed.
âSeung-ryeol, Seung-ryeol, Seung-ryeol⦠Seung-ryeol.â
The father, having no spade, dug a hole in the earth with his bare hands.
He snatched the babyâs body from her arms and buried it.
Seung-ryeol,
Seung-ryeol,
Seung-ryeolâ¦
Elena
She was born in early spring 1940
near a fresh green barley-field, skylarks soaring.
Her mother lacked milk so went round the village with her infant,
and she survived thanks to the milk other mothers gave grudgingly.
So her life began as a baby beggar.
From the age of six
she started doing night work, keeping her mother company.
So she set out on a wearisome life as a child labourer.
After the war
she was sixteen, quite beautiful.
When she smiled the slightest smile
dimples appeared on both her cheeks.
Desolate times though they were,
some bright angel seemed to have alit upon her eyes.
In the summer of 1956
on her way home from evening classes
she was raped
by two US soldiers in a jeep.
She wanted to die.
She wanted to die.
Even heaven no longer existed.
And her hometown was no refuge;
it was a place of pointing fingers.
Weeping
she left home and,
as fate would have it,
became a whore outside a US base in Songtan, Geonggi province.
Sunja turned
into Elena.
In a drunken fit she killed a US private
who was hitting her, refusing to pay.
Sentenced to life,
Elena
turned back into Sunja.
She was sent to Suwon prison,
then to Gongju prison,
then to Suncheon prison.
Never once did her lips speak the word ‘love’.
When everyone around the world was talking
about Eisenhower being elected president,
she remained silent for a whole day.
Mute. And in her heart, a clot of ash.
Othersâ Eyes
That war
took away the greetings we used to exchange even with strangers.
It took away customs of speaking slowly,
gently.
Words became faster
and sharp.
That war took away the clarity in the eyes
of people in autumnâs cool wind.
Gradually,
not only the eyes of people
but of cows and horses in the stony fields
grew bloodshot and fierce.
In front of Daejeon Station
a gum-selling kid
was clearly beating another kid to death.
Not one spectator
intervened. The wind stirred up the dust.
Not one
had the friendly face of villagers back home.
Two Rivers
Of a sudden
shortly before the Armistice
the fierce fighting on the western front
stopped.
No sound of gunfire,
anywhere.
Was that an illusion?
Once again the sound of gunfire
filled the space between enemies.
Rain began to pour down.
Illusion?
That night
Byeon Ju-seop, a youth from Pyeongsan, Hwanghae province,
crossed the Yeseong River in the rain.
Bare-footed,
he kept on, heading over mountain ridges.
Finally, more than exhausted, he crossed the Imjin River
oblivious of the pain of his bleeding feet, their cracked soles.
When the boy reached the southern bank of the Imjin River,
his constant dream for several days,
he called out repeatedly, Mother! Mother!
his whole body shivering,
upper and lower jaws
trembling each on their own.
The rain kept on.
Mother was in the North now, son in the South.
His voice changed.
His face was full of freckles.
Now he was alone.
He would be alone when he begged,
when he filched.
He would be alone when he delivered restaurant food.
Alone, oblivious of a future in which he would father eleven children.
He had a triangular face.
He cried wildly, calling, Mother! Mother!
The division of North from South
divided one from one, one from another, individuals.
After that day the youth no
Its mother muffled the sound
swaddling the baby in a blanket.
Finally they were safe.
The guide, once paid, vanished.
On the sodden ridge, scratched by the brushwood,
they all sighed with relief in the rain.
Weâre alive, they gasped.
Weâve made it,.
The blanket muffling the baby was unwound.
The one-year-old
was dead, suffocated.
The mother shook her dead baby.
She shook it
and wailed.
âSeung-ryeol, Seung-ryeol, Seung-ryeol⦠Seung-ryeol.â
The father, having no spade, dug a hole in the earth with his bare hands.
He snatched the babyâs body from her arms and buried it.
Seung-ryeol,
Seung-ryeol,
Seung-ryeolâ¦
Elena
She was born in early spring 1940
near a fresh green barley-field, skylarks soaring.
Her mother lacked milk so went round the village with her infant,
and she survived thanks to the milk other mothers gave grudgingly.
So her life began as a baby beggar.
From the age of six
she started doing night work, keeping her mother company.
So she set out on a wearisome life as a child labourer.
After the war
she was sixteen, quite beautiful.
When she smiled the slightest smile
dimples appeared on both her cheeks.
Desolate times though they were,
some bright angel seemed to have alit upon her eyes.
In the summer of 1956
on her way home from evening classes
she was raped
by two US soldiers in a jeep.
She wanted to die.
She wanted to die.
Even heaven no longer existed.
And her hometown was no refuge;
it was a place of pointing fingers.
Weeping
she left home and,
as fate would have it,
became a whore outside a US base in Songtan, Geonggi province.
Sunja turned
into Elena.
In a drunken fit she killed a US private
who was hitting her, refusing to pay.
Sentenced to life,
Elena
turned back into Sunja.
She was sent to Suwon prison,
then to Gongju prison,
then to Suncheon prison.
Never once did her lips speak the word ‘love’.
When everyone around the world was talking
about Eisenhower being elected president,
she remained silent for a whole day.
Mute. And in her heart, a clot of ash.
Othersâ Eyes
That war
took away the greetings we used to exchange even with strangers.
It took away customs of speaking slowly,
gently.
Words became faster
and sharp.
That war took away the clarity in the eyes
of people in autumnâs cool wind.
Gradually,
not only the eyes of people
but of cows and horses in the stony fields
grew bloodshot and fierce.
In front of Daejeon Station
a gum-selling kid
was clearly beating another kid to death.
Not one spectator
intervened. The wind stirred up the dust.
Not one
had the friendly face of villagers back home.
Two Rivers
Of a sudden
shortly before the Armistice
the fierce fighting on the western front
stopped.
No sound of gunfire,
anywhere.
Was that an illusion?
Once again the sound of gunfire
filled the space between enemies.
Rain began to pour down.
Illusion?
That night
Byeon Ju-seop, a youth from Pyeongsan, Hwanghae province,
crossed the Yeseong River in the rain.
Bare-footed,
he kept on, heading over mountain ridges.
Finally, more than exhausted, he crossed the Imjin River
oblivious of the pain of his bleeding feet, their cracked soles.
When the boy reached the southern bank of the Imjin River,
his constant dream for several days,
he called out repeatedly, Mother! Mother!
his whole body shivering,
upper and lower jaws
trembling each on their own.
The rain kept on.
Mother was in the North now, son in the South.
His voice changed.
His face was full of freckles.
Now he was alone.
He would be alone when he begged,
when he filched.
He would be alone when he delivered restaurant food.
Alone, oblivious of a future in which he would father eleven children.
He had a triangular face.
He cried wildly, calling, Mother! Mother!
The division of North from South
divided one from one, one from another, individuals.
After that day the youth no
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