Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid

Photography by Kim Jae-gon

Rising Tide by Jung Kut-byol

At night, just barely,

two boats slide in,
lowering their anchors at the port;
two naked boats
lie side by side
touching each other’s wounds

We are safe–we are fortunate, oh,
to see the ocean calming down

밀물/ 정끝별

가까스로 저녁에서야

두 척의 배가
미끄러지듯 항구에 닻을 내린다
벗은 두 배가
나란히 누워
서로의 상처에 손을 대며

무사하구나 다행이야
응, 바다가 잠잠해서

Jung Kut-byol is a professor of Korean literature at Myungji University in Seoul, South Korea. Since 1988, she has worked as both a poet and a critic. She has published four poetry collections, My Life: A Birch Tree (1996), A White Book (2000), An Old Man’s Vitality (2005), and Suddenly (2008) and two collections of critical essays, The Poetics of Parody (1997) and The Language of Poetry Has a Thousand Tongues (2008). She has also edited an anthology titled In Anyone’s Heart, Wouldn’t a Poem Bloom? 100 Favorite Poems Recommended by 100 Korean Poets (2008).