Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid

Photography by Kim Jaegon

Cottony Snowflakes by Choi Don-sun

It would be wonderful
to have cottony snowflakes all the time.
Puppy-like,
I would like to be a child again.
It would be wonderful
to leave without any purpose,
passing through the long winter trees.
It would be wonderful
to become white footsteps,
alone, like that.

It would be wonderful
to have a loved one—the one everybody loves–
standing at the far end of the winter,
to greet me.
It would be wonderful
to laugh hearty laughs,
patting one another’s lean backs.
It would be wonderful
to laugh hearty laughs
like these cottony snowflakes.

Wonderful–
it would be wonderful.
I once felt so painful,
I once felt so sorrowful,
I once felt so poor.

It would be wonderful
to have the cottony snowflakes, pouring down endlessly,
erasing all of this into white.
So
foolish,

but how wonderful it would be to become a white snowman.

함박눈—최돈선

아무 때나
함박눈이 왔음 좋겠다.
그래서 강아지처럼
철부지가 되었음 좋겠다.
아무 뜻 없이
긴 겨울나무 사이로 떠났으면 좋겠다.
그렇게 홀로
하얀 발자국이었으면 좋겠다.

사랑하는 사람
모두 사랑하는 사람
저 먼 겨울 끝에 서서
나를 반겨주었으면 좋겠다.
서로 서로 야윈 등 두드리며
함빡 웃어봤음 좋겠다.
펑펑 함박눈처럼 웃어봤음 좋겠다.

그래
그랬으면 좋겠다.
너무 아파
너무 슬퍼
너무 가난해

이 모든 것
함박눈 펑펑 내려
하얗게 하얗게 지워졌음 좋겠다.
천치같이
그런,

하얀 눈사람이었으면 좋겠다.