Sunlight

I’m utterly helpless.

I’ll just have to swallow my spit

and adversity, too.

But look!

A distinguished visitor deigns to visit

my tiny, north-facing cell.

Not the chief making his rounds, no.

As evening falls, a ray of sunlight.

A gleam no bigger than a crumpled postage stamp.

I’m crazy about it! Real first love!

I try to get it to settle on the palm of my hand,

to warm the toes of my shyly bared foot.

Then as I kneel and offer it my undevout, lean face,

in a moment that scrap of sunlight slips away.

After the guest has departed through the bars

the room feels several times colder and darker.

This special cell of a military prison

is like a photographer’s darkroom.

Without any sunlight I laughed like a fool.

One day it was a coffin holding a corpse.

One day it was altogether the sea. How wonderful!

A few people survive here.

Being alive is a sea

without a single sail in sight. 

by Ko Un

Sunrise - Tura Beach © Jennifer Phillips