Poem for a Tuesday — “Alone at Night” by Kwon P’il

The way of the world as it is,

What can I do about the fleeting time?

As a few chrysanthemums shiver in the late autumn,

Cricket chirps grow louder as the night deepens.

The sad moon throws its beams on the windowpanes;

And the wind shakes the rustling branches.

Recalling what has happened over the last ten years,

I sit before a lamp, counting the moths flying into it.

translated from the Chinese by Sung-Il Lee

in The Gift of Tongues (Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press), 1996, page 168.

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Kwon P’il (1569-1612) was a classical Korean poet of the early Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910). Although Korea has had its own language for several thousand years, it has had a writing system only since the mid-15th century when Hangul was invented. As a result, early Korean literary activity was in Chinese characters and was heavily influenced by Chinese intellectual thought. Kwon P’il was among the first poets to work in both Chinese and the newly developed Hangul. His poetry reflects an attempt to cultivate an authentically Korean voice and shake off the traditional social norms and standards of Chinese literature.

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