번역: 내 삶의 두 가지 만남
Two meetings in my life
Two meetings in my life
Three meetings make up my life. The first meeting is holy, the second curious and the third heart stirring. Here I’d like to write about the second and the third. To talk about them in full without reservation requires as much time as there are stars in the galaxy. I’m just taking two of those stars and putting it on paper. Those stars became poems within me and are now making their way to you. They are my stars but can become yours that glitter in your own galaxy.
<A star from the second meeting>
‘A poem for morpheme’
Before I knew you
I knew about word.
Word said
I can be used on my own in speech.
Morpheme who is inferior cannot.
That’s when I suddenly became interested in you.
One day I heard your definition.
Smallest unit with meaning.
From you we start attributing meaning.
You approached me as a being with such significance.
I came to know that you compose word.
I realised that loud mouthed word is founded on you.
You keep silent, just smiling knowingly.
Even though word claims that autonomy doesn’t start until it exists
You just keep smiling.
And in that smile
I realised the truth about you.
As a free morpheme you can only exist as a word.
However, your other role is to be a bound morpheme.
I love this about you even more.
It’s this role that clearly separates you from word.
Spring is here.
When all are drunk from looking at word in splendid bloom
I think about you within.
With subtle meaning you quietly make up word
Just smiling, not making a fuss.
Even all that I’ve said above is full of meaning you emanate.
<A star from the third meeting>
‘The journey to my wife’
At first our paths were so different
I just thought we’d meet once and shyly say hello.
I credited our lengthening time together to the fact that we’d be meeting just this once.
We parted but on the road leading home I walked back and forth.
Not knowing, I just walked back and forth.
I wrote a letter suggesting a second meeting but there was no reply.
I resigned myself thinking It’s as it should be but my gaze kept wondering to my phone.
A day, two days, more days passed when
As if waking from a dream I put my thoughts in order thinking it’s as it should be and sighed.
It was when I began to feel like myself again when
The phone rang.
She and I had both waited.
After our meeting fate had conspired to keep us both waiting.
She called from a crowded bus at quarter to ten in the evening.
From England to Korea, from Korea to Korea, feelings travelling quicker than light whispered to her
One meeting gave birth to such long anticipation
But such moments transformed into long-awaited voices that whispered in each other’s ears
Love destined
When the world was created.
I was born
She was born
All of the steps we each have taken
Thus brought us together to this point.
All the waiting
Solely
So we could meet
The joy was blinding.
The day we were born
From that time on
I to her, she to me
Running without pause.
*한국어 원문:
( 실마리 브런치북 [길 위의 젊은 나에게] 중 05번째 글 )
*안내 글
영국인 아내가 한국인 남편의 생각을 깊이 이해하고 싶다며 번역을 자청했습니다. 번역이 언제 모두 끝날 지는 모르겠지만, 적어도 아내가 남편의 생각을 이해하며 번역해 나가는 과정 그 자체가 가장 의미 있는 일일 것입니다. 아내의 손끝에서 나의 생각은 언어의 옷을 갈아입습니다.
