​​FOR NIRVANA 
108 ZEN SIJO POEMS      

CHO OH-HYUN
  

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ntroductory by KWON YOUNGMIN

translated by HEINZ INSU FENKLE 

Associate professor of English and Asian studies at SUNY New Paltz.

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85

WANING LANDSCAPE

Are they weeping, or laughing, as they go

The geese from the reed forest flying in a flock

And the sky, the autumn sky, its throat sunk in the kill

86

AT THE TOMB OF KING SEONDEOK

Late fall flowers, blooming in the cold wind,

Look up to the pale daylight moon.

Your throne didn¡¯t last a hundred years,

But the dirt you return to abides a thousand.

In the empty mountain where the scops owl cries,

Only a rain of pine needles pilling up.

87

FOREST

To live like that,

To go on living like that

Mountain forming valleys

To let the waters flow

And trees breeding insects

Under their rough bark

88

NEW SHOOTS

The sky, the eye¡¯s light,

   Open once more at the point of breath,

An ember born again

   Where a star¡¯s light glanced-

Today, at last, the green waves

   Of May come surging again.

89

EARLY SPRING

A plantain leaf, half the spring day

At my western window,

its image like calligraphy ink

bleeding into cheap draft paper-

rain drops fall into the blaze

of sunbeams in the valley of roof tiles.

90

THREE VIEWS OF SPRING

1.

The spring Purge

The fiery rashes in my crotch

Have caused my festering molars, all, to fall out-

My ignorance, wide as the sky, ah, that magical purge

2.

A History of spring

I cut my words with my tongue- a blade for beheading horses,

And even hallucinogenic mushrooms, which claimed my soul,

Are all budding like flowers on this dammed spring night

3.

Spring Riot

Thirsty-thirsty-even the nectar in the blossoms

Each passing spring withers my ever-diminishing life,

And this year it appears the flowers will come in one big riot

91

THE SOUND OF MY OWN CRY

In the woods at noon

I hear a bird cry out

On the shore, mid-morning,

I hear the gulls

When will I hear

The sound of my own cry?

92

ALL THE SAME AT JOURNEY¡¯S END

Age: twelve

Identity: monk

Work till noon stomping the foot mill,

Split firewood till the sun goes down

Once a generation, hear the cry

Of a bird hiding out in the woods

Then ten years, twenty years,

Forty years pass, and today

Living on the mountain

Not seeing the mountain

And the sound of the bird¡¯s cry?

I can¡¯t even hear my own.

93

SCARECROW

He waves at the flocking birds,

At the man walking by-

This scarecrows, as he works for others, with a smile

A year of bounty, or a famine year,

Take a walk along the paddy dikes-

Mine, yours-

See the field, the autumn wind?

Not a sole possession, yet I, too, a smiling scarecrow

Is what they say I am,

But clear my mind, spread my two arms wide, and

Everything, even the sky-all just a single step away

94

DAYS  LIVING ON THE MOUNTAIN

Reached the age when I¡¯m sick of it all.

My thoughts, too, knotty like the bones of my bent back,

Today I grabbed a stump about to fall over.

Day before yesterday, I went to see Master Hancheon at his temple

And asked him what made him want to go on living.

He couldn¡¯t explain in words, so he told me to strike the

Cloud gong.

Now, really, the days living on the mountain-

One day crying like a bug in the grass,

One day laughing like a flower in the field,

Only to see it-the flow that ends the flow.

95

VAPORS

No way forward, no way back

Look around-in all directions, up and down-

   Empty sky and endless cliff

Funny

What I wandered all my life to find is a precipice

Finally at this cliff, where I must

   Toss down both life and death-

Vapors waft around to their heart¡¯s content

Funny

That what I clung to all my life-nothing but vapors

96

MY LIFELINES

What I¡¯ve been seeking all my life

Are the mainlines, the veins

Of Zen

& poetry

The conclusion I reached today-

Poetry is woodgrain, knotted,

& Zen is wood¡¯s grain, straight

97

EMBERS(AFTERWORD)

-to my readers

These words I¡¯ve spewed ¡®til now-they¡¯re all drivel.

Mouth ajar at last, as not to tread on earth or stone,

This body, infused with brass, in a molten fire.

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