Chair - Yi Cheong-rok

It's been a while since I posted anything, but here's a draft that I've been working on. It's always hard to translate the feeling of a poem, especially when there's imagery in the work that I'm unfamiliar with. Poems can be so vague with the imagery too, so that requires more cultural knowledge.

Hope you like it and I welcome any criticism you have!


Chair
Yi Cheong-rok

While preparing to go to the hospital
Mother
spoke up

I see the world from a chair
because my hips hurt.
Sitting in a chair
I can see everything, the flowers, the fruits.

On the weekend
Your father brought in the oxygen.
At that time you, my first son,
asked him if the chair was good enough.

Later after having received acupuncture
I was cutting hay out in the melon fields,
supported by the coiled pumpkins beneath me.
Despite being food, they had given me a chair.

Do not fight, live your life.
Isn't it remarkable to live--getting married, having a child?
So don't take out the chair
only when the shade and the view are good.


의자
이정록


병원에 갈 채비를 하며
어머니께서
한 소식 던지신다

허리가 아프니까
세상이 다 의자로 보여야
꽃도 열매도, 그게 다
의자에 앉아있는 것이여

주말엔
아버지 산소 좀 다녀와라
그래도 큰애 네가
아버지한테는 좋은 의자 아녔냐

이따가 침맞고 와서는
참외밭에 지푸라기도 깔고
호박에 똬리도 받쳐야겠다
그것들도 식군데 의자를 내줘야지

싸우지 말고 살아라
결혼하고 애 낳고 사는 게 별거냐
그늘 좋고 풍경 좋은 데다가
의자 몇 개 내놓는 거여