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.

KO UN ~

WHAT? ~

KO UN

BABY



Before you were born

before your dad

before your mom



your burbling

                           was there.






WALKING DOWN A MOUNTAIN



Looking back

      Hey!

There's no trace of the mountain I've just come down

Where am I?

The autumn breeze tosses and turns lifeless

       like a cast-off snakeskin.






BROAD DAYLIGHT



A dry turd

with no flies around.



Is this paradise?  No.







A FRIEND



Hey! With the clay you dug out

I fashioned a buddha.

It rained.

The buddha turned back into clay.



Pointless as the clear skies after rain.







THE WASH



The wash flaps, a bodhisattva not

knowing it's a bodhisattva.







ONE DAY



Lightning over the hill in front

thunder over the hill behind

between the two

       one dumb pebble.







IN DAYLIGHT



After the rain, the waters rose everywhere.

Twelve no thirfourfifsixteen swallows

are soaring high.







WIND



A wind stirs.

Ah, this world, that world.







HOUSE



Grow high. The devil can't find you.

Grow deep. Buddha can't find you

Build a house and live there.

Gourd creepers will climb over it,

their flowers dazzling at midnight.







LATE ONE NIGHT



Late one night a fox changes its shape

and slips into your room as a pretty girl:

       what will you do?



Don't be stupid. I'll grab her.



Ha, ha, you fox's husband, you.

A fox is more fun than Buddha, of course.



         You bet.







THE POLE STAR



If you vanished

the north would vanish

the south would vanish

east and west would vanish.

        No.







PARTING



Farewell.

Fare well.









________________________

Ko Un
108 Zen Poms
What

EARTH ~











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.

She would do.



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





translated by Clare You & Richard Silberg
from THE THREE WAY TAVERN by Ko Un
(U/Cal.)







With 135 books published of poetry, prose, drama, essays, travel, translations from classical Chinese and much more, Ko Un was born in 1933. During the Korean War he was both emotionally and physically ruined when he lost family and friends. It was during this time the poet became a Buddhist monk and upheld a monastic life for the next decade. A life of struggle, suicide attempts, an activist in the democracy movement for South Korea, Ko Un had been imprisoned countless times between 1974-1989; at one point there was a terrible plan to lock him away twenty years for treason. A general pardon spared him. His greatest writing achievement may be Maninbo (Ten Thousand Leaves) which holds over 4000 poems in 30 volumes addressing every person the poet has ever met personally or in his studies. His shadow
holds to earth.


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