[Poem] It's Autumn in Life

It's autumn by calendar. The remaining days of the year of 2022 can be numbered.

The young people are counting the days to Christmas Day.

But the elderly people are counting their remaining days on earth.

They agree with a poet who is respectful of the power of wind.

 

Surely, they have experienced various kinds of wind in the course of their lives:

- whirlwind of love in their 20s;

- storms to be weathered while doing business in their 30s and 40s;

- gust of wind like disease and separation in the 50s and 60s; and

- cold wind arising out of loneliness after retirement.

 

Sometimes, wayward wind of affairs might occur against one's will.

Likewise, the sultry weather in the third line of the following poem would be replaced by love, affairs, delight in doing business, etc.

 

 

바람의 힘 - 홍사성 (1951~ )

Power of Wind by Hong Sa-seong

 

바람이 불었다

A gust of wind was blowing.

어느 날 갑자기

더위가 사라졌다

Suddenly one day,

the sultry weather was gone.

언제 그랬냐는 듯

No one knows when it did happen.

사는 일 다 그렇다

기쁨도 슬픔도

The way of life is like this,

whatever it makes joy or sorrow.

(translated by Prof. Whon-il Park)

 

 

Autumn Within by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

마음 속의 가을 - 헨리 워즈워스 롱펠로 (1807~1882)

 

It is autumn; not without

But within me is the cold.

Youth and spring are all about;

It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,

Singing, building without rest;

Life is stirring everywhere,

Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves

Fall and rustle and are still;

Beats no flail upon the sheaves,

Comes no murmur from the mill.

가을이다. 바깥이 아니라

내 마음속이 쌀쌀하다

누리에 젊음과 봄이 한창인데,

나만 홀로 늙어버렸다.

새들이 허공을 날아다니고,

쉴 새 없이 노래하며 집을 짓는다.

곳곳에서 생명이 꿈틀대고 있다.

나의 외로운 가슴속을 빼고는

거기만 고요하다. 죽은 잎들

떨어져 바스락거리다 잠잠해진다.

보리타작하는 소리도 그치고,

방앗간의 웅얼대는 소리도 멎었다.

(김천봉 옮김)

 

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