Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid

At Cargill Middle School by Lee Si-young

In a middle school classroom in Qana where sixty Lebanese civilians were killed, four families of refugees were living who lost their homes due to the Israelis’ indiscriminate air strikes. A young woman said she lost her younger brother, a grandmother said she lost her adult son. When a KBS reporter held a microphone to her, the woman didn’t say anything, rolling her exposed eyes within her chador, and the sobbing grandmother said with urgency, “Now there is nobody else we can rely on except Allah. He will surely help us.”

카길중학교에서/ 이시영

60여명의 레바논 민간인들이 숨진 카나 마을의 한 중학교 교실,
이스라엘군의 무차별 공습으로 집이 날아간 네 가족의 난민들이
살고 있었다. 한 젊은 여인은 남동생을 잃었다고 했고 한 할머니는
장성한 아들을 잃었다고 했다. KBS 기자가 마이크를 들이대자
여인은 차도르 밖으로 드러난 검은 눈을 굴리면서 아무 말도 하지
않았고 할머니는 흐느끼면서 “이제 알라신밖에 의지할 곳은 없다.
그분께서 반드시 우리를 도와주실 것”이라고 힘주어 말했다.

Lee Si-young (1949- ) was born in Gurye, Jeollanamdo. He studied creative writing at Seorabeol College of Arts. Since his literary debut in 1969, he has published poetry collections such as The Full Moon (1976), Into the Wind (1986), Friend, the Road Is Far (1988), The Song Dangling with Dew (1991), The Pattern (1994), The Gap (1996), The Quiet Blue Sky (1997), The Silver Whistle (2003), The Sea Lake (2004), The Aroma of Cow Dung(2005), and For Our Dead (2007). He has received many prestigious literary awards, including The Jung Ji-yong Literary Award (1996), The Dongseo Literary Award (1998), Modern Buddhist Literary Award (2004), The Jihoon Award (2004) and The Baeksok Literary Award (2004). For the last forty years, he has strived to write “poetry, resisting the reality and contradictions of the day.” He currently teaches creative writing at Dankuk University in Seoul.