Wednesday, October 14, 2020

RE-READING KO UN ~





Afterlife




I won't come back as a human.

Ever.



For the afterlife,

an animal will do.

Not a big one;

small will do.

Even

so small it can hardly be seen.

An amoeba will do.



I didn't want that a few years ago.

I could have been reborn

not a man but

an ignorant woman who had lost a few

of her eleven children.

Shoe would do.



But I won't be born as a human being ever again.




____________________

Ko Un
The Three Way Tavern
Selected Poems
translated by Clare You & Richard Silberg
University of California Press 2006





You can read lots and lots of Ko Un, that good.
But I picked out one pumpkin from the patch.