East

Why I’ m going to the Taklamakan Desert:
the emptiness there.

Why I’ m going to the Taklamakan Desert
at seventy-five, leaving all words behind: the cry
of the emptiness there.

Why I’ m going to the Taklamakan Desert:
I can no longer stand
the world’ s greed
or mine.

There, in the Taklamakan Desert,
the silence of a thousand-year-old skull.

Translated from the Korean

Someone’ s coming
from the other world.

Hiss of night rain.

Someone’ s going there now.
The two are sure to meet.

Translated from the Korean

My body is powdery white and round
I sink and bob like a mountain in a pond
The hand that kneads me is hard and rough
You can't destroy my true red heart