“Riddle” by Heo Soo-Kyeong

Heo Soo-Kyeong (source)
Heo Soo-Kyeong (image source)

From the theatre, we left for a restaurant
and placed food into mouths hanging on down-turned faces.
From the restaurant, we went for a walk.
All the stores were closed and all the bars too full to enter.

Bye, let’s split up here now.
Let’s just disappear like the wind.
It’s like someone somewhere is butchering polar bears.

Was there a fine?
Of course not.

Was there a parting?
Of course.

Afterwards, I couldn’t find the ‘me’ that was in us.
I remember the movies and food from moments we spent in love.
Like snow forgotten to spring radish sprouts,
I can’t seem to remember his face.

As memories enter a wall of ice, I erased them before they could build their home.
If I  remember your back, I quickly call down sleep like light fallen from above my eyes.
When we got up again,

you considered the tears falling from my face for an eternity.
For an eternity, tears clung to your face while I looked at it.
Journeying so far from home, you could’ve died.
We murmur young flowers to each other like blind camellia seeds.

It was a time when the dogs with me at the street stall groaned.
It was a time when the elderly person selling elimination took their pushcart to cross over to the subway.
It seemed like we asked ourselves for an eternity why we split up.
It still doesn’t feel quite real,
but it’s already been an eternity.

And that’s when I always thought of the stars.
And that’s when I always thought of the beggar
who went out from beneath my legs and never returned.
It was a riddle.
A riddle with your name. Beneath the skin, a continent long forgotten.
Does it sleep wrapping the grey mountain range like a young fog?



극장을 나와 우리는 밥집으로 갔네
고개를 숙이고 메이는 목으로 밥을 넘겼네
밥집을 나와 우리는 걸었네
서점은 다 문을 닫았고 맥줏집은 사람들로 가득해서 들어갈 수 없었네

안녕, 이제 우리 헤어져
바람처럼 그렇게 없어지자
먼 곳에서 누군가가 북극곰을 도살하고 있는 것 같아.

차비 있어?
차비는 없었지
이별 있어?
이별만 있었지

나는 그 후로 우리 가운데 하나를 다시 만나지 못했네
사랑했던 순간들의 영화와 밥은 기억나는데
그 얼굴은 봄 무순이 잊어버린 눈[雪]처럼
기억나지 않았네

얼음의 벽 속으로 들어와 기억이 집을 짓기 전에 얼른 지워버렸지
뒷모습이 기억나면 얼른 눈 위로 떨어지던 빛처럼 잠을 청했지
다시 자리에서 일어났을 때,

당신이 만년 동안 내 얼굴에 흐르는 눈물을 들여다보고 있었네
내가 만년 동안 당신 얼굴에 흐르는 눈물을 붙들고 있었네
먼 여행 도중에 죽을 수도 있을 거야
나와 당신은 어린 꽃을 단 눈먼 동백처럼 중얼거렸네

노점에 나와 있던 강아지들이 낑낑거리는 세월이었네
폐지를 팔던 노인이 리어카를 끌고 지하도를 건너가고 있는 세월이었네
왜 그때 헤어졌지, 라고 우리는 만년 동안 물었던 것 같네
아직 실감나지 않는 이별이었으나
이별은 이미 만년 전이었어

그때마다 별을 생각했네
그때마다 아침에 나가서 돌아오지 않았던
다리 밑에 사는 거지를 생각했네
수수께끼였어,
당신이라는 수수께끼, 그 살[肉] 밑에서 얼마나 오랫동안 잊혀진 대륙들은
회빛 산맥을 어린 안개처럼 안고 잠을 잤을까?


“Riddle” (수수께끼) originally appeared in Daum – 70 Representative Korean Poets.

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