Counting the stars at night

             In            the sky        where seasons         pass Autumn                            fills the                    air.
                      And    ready                  I wait without                  worry               to count all the                stars she                bears.
   Now                the         reason        I cannot                   totally            all              the stars impressed             the morning soon comes,
          my youth’             not          quite done,             and           another night           still             lays                  in store.

One star for memories,                                                 and
               One star for loving
             One star for melancholy,                                        and
          Another for longing
      One star for poetry,                                                          and
  Another for ma, mother,

Mother, I will            try to name                                       all the stars          after beautiful                                words:
The names of               school friends I sat with, foreign girls like         Pae,        Kyeong and           Oak;
girls          who have            now         become            mothers and            other           poor        neighboring                folk;
the       pigeons,            the puppies,          the hares,              mules and deer,          the names           of          such poets               as Jammes               and Rilke.


Yet       all       of these people so                                                                      far away                                                                                                      now.
And            mother,            the star,              is in Northern                Jiandao


                                                                                                                          Pining            for something
           I scribble                  my name
into                 a star                       spattered hill.
                              Then                          bury it                 (again.)


          As for the insect who wails through the                        night
on account of the pain of its name full of           shame.
                                                But                      winter              will                                  pass                      bringing                            spring                       to my star,
                                                               As the tuft grows                        round gravestones                the grass will abound.
where my name has been buried in that star spattered mound.

Yun Dong-Ju