while the owner followed behind.
He carried the load as far as the bus stop
across the road,
then demanded five hundred hwan,
saying the bag was far too heavy.
He refused to put the bag down, demanding payment.
Fingers wagged as they quarreled.
Finally the porter won
after reducing the charge
to four hundred hwan.
No need to be polite, no saying
Thanks or
Good bye.
The porter, Im Ho-sun,
had lost a son the day before.
Today he had come out
and made 400 hwan on his first load.
Once work was over at nightfall
he would down a shot of soju.
Only then would sorrow for his dead son
come welling up.
Until then
Seoul station spurned sorrow;
at the most extreme moments of life,
sorrow too is superfluous.
The 1920 Massacre
Even in the wilds of Manchuria, their place of exile,
the people from Korea
built schools in their villages.
Teaching their children
was the core of the Koreans’ life.
They built houses with floors of clay,
planted maize,
and barley.
After erecting four corner pillars of logs
they covered the roofs with stones packed close like moss
to keep them warm.
The buckwheat harvest was better than the barley.
Even scattered wildly
as if by a mad girl on a seesaw,
it’s tough, grows well.
They raised hens, too,
feeding them corn.
In winter, the people had only buckwheat noodles.
At night
a pine root was used to light the lamps.
Tomorrow they would exchange
a handful of corn for a handful of salt.
Their kimchi, unsalted, was tasteless.
At school
they sang the school song.
Instructor Kim Chang-hwan of the Sinheung Military Academy
shouted commands in a voice so resonant
it echoed off the surrounding hills.
They studied Korean language,
Korean history,
Korean geography,
calligraphy,
composition,
singing,
arithmetic, multiplication tables.
All such villages were burned to the ground.
Everyone was killed.
Everything ransacked.
Nobody was left to grind their teeth.
Old Cha Il-man
As the southern forces marched northward,
at Suritjae village on the banks of the Hantan River
one hundred humble thatched houses were set on fire.
All but one man died, leaving a deathly silence.
The one who survived, Cha Il-man, was sick and old.
He took one look at the dead village.
Crawling outside,
he drank lye beneath the wooden step.
His legs soon stiffened.
Nobody remained.
He himself was a word that nobody
could understand.
Hong Jin-su
His nickname was Inchworm.
On weeding days
he said not a word all day.
Some people working alone
mutter and
mutter,
saying things no one can understand.
But Inchworm Hong Jin-su said never a word.
Herons would fly in close, then fly away again.
In February 1951,
shortly before the second draft for the national militia,
the village youths
all drank castor oil to induce diarrhoea.
They had to lose weight.
Under 45 kilograms, they would be disqualified.
Later, however, whether 40 kg or 30,
they all passed the medical exam, second class.
Inchworm cut off the top of his right index finger
with an adze.
He buried the severed fingertip on the hill behind his house.
Within twelve days the finger healed.
Meanwhile he failed the medical, classed third grade.
Relieved, he set about selling tofu.
Putting the tofu trays on his shoulder
he left home early, before breakfast time.
Buy my tofu.
Buy my tofu.
He did evening rounds, too.
Buy my tofu.
Buy my tofu.
After his parents quit the world
he provided his four younger siblings with food,
fed them as well the tofu that was left unsold.
VOLUME 18
Ong-nye’s Husband
Putilovka village in far-away Hassan,
where three borders meet:
Korea, Manchuria, Russia.
In secret, Korean farmers
would cross into that region,
as yet free of bandits.
They built hovels to keep out wind and rain
and survived by grazing cattle and goats
every day on the grass of three countries.
There they lived, snaring birds
on the banks of the Tumen,
catching wild deer,
sowing grain and hunting.
While washing clothes by a stream,
hunter Jang Gil-seong’s daughter Ong-nye
met a man on a horse.
His eyes were hollow
with hunger.
He couldn’t even dismount by himself
Ong-nye wiped her wet hands and helped him down.
She went back home for some cold rice
and returned to feed him.
A Korean independence fighter,
he had crossed the river
on his dead commander’s horse,
pursued by the Japanese.
Actually, he’d rowed across,
the horse swam.
He hadn’t eaten for three days.
Ong-nye brought him home.
When her father returned from hunting, she begged:
Let this man become my husband.
Allow your daughter
to become this man’s wife,
Father!
Her father Jang Gil-seong
tossed his catch — two cock-pheasants –
at the stranger’s feet.
Old Madman
He goes about with a dog’s bone stuck in his belt.
He gobbles up earthworms
and frogs, too, all deftly caught
Heuh heuh,
heuh heuh heuh,
he laughs, looking at the sky,
the sky where hawks hover.
Neighbourhood kids
tease him,
throwing stones.
Heuh heuh,
he laughs.
At the sound of a plane he falls flat on his back.
Asleep
under the bridge beyond the village,
his face becomes utterly holy,
utterly peaceful.
When the curs bark at him
he bows his head obsequiously, twisting his hands, saying:
‘I did wrong.
I did wrong.’
Tae-sun’s grandmother explains:
‘He’s a fellow from Uitteum in Sangchon-ri
who went mad after losing two sons.’
One was conscripted in the Pacific War and never came back.
One was drafted in the Korean War and never came back.
Gunfire in Bongdong-myeon, Wanju