Mely Kiyak | FictionTranslations
Listen to Suphil Lee Park read this poem in Korean and English.
You, visitor from a dream twenty years ago
Stand on this beach now as a stranger with white hair
Waning years from this day on won’t be such a pain
Let’s talk, laugh, and drink—in spring we’d be good to go
Heartless water flows on and knows not to return
Spring wind or fall moon, who else will pour drinks with me
Tonight, listen, I’ll spill a lifetime’s worth and more
Even these lanterns dim and bloom just for us two
Note: Seolpah is typically interpreted as Wooncho’s old friend from her courtesan days. Written sometime in the nineteenth century, this is one of the very few old Korean poems that explore female friendship.