I can feel summer’s breath upon us. So I decided to use a poem by a local visiting poet Younseop Ko in this week’s LYRICAL. Ko is here on sabbatical from Dongguk University in Korea where he teaches the history of Korean Buddhism and Korean Buddhist Philosophy.  He is studying the History of Korean Thought through the Korea Institute at Harvard.  On the side he teaches the History of Korean Thought at Munsusa in Wakefield.  Ko has published four collections of his poetry in Korean and is at work on a fifth.

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Summer Sky

A cicada perched on an oak tree
Rubbed its whole body, wringing out its song.
Then it dropped the last remaining skin
After its emergence
a sleeve of silken dress woven without entangling
a single strand
A book of poetry fashioned by the simmering summer sky
I still have plenty of skin left,
My nose always getting caught in each strand of the melody
All summer long the cicada on the tree
Ceaselessly embroidered stitch after stitch,
and produced a superb song like a heavenly seamless dress
That transcends all flaws,
That doesn’t get caught in the net of heat
Like the west wind that goads the late summer.

– Youngseop Ko
translated by Changsoo Ko

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