White Flowers have Popped from the Crown

Hong Euntaek was born in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, in 1958. He made his literary debut by receiving the Best New Poet Award from Si-An in 1999. He has published several books of poems including “From the Painful Spots Flowers Bloom” (2005) and “The Singing Desert” (2014), a book of criticism, “The Poetic World of William Carlos Williams” (1998) and a book of translation in collaboration with Rodney E. Tyson, “Brilliant Korean Poems in English” (2003). He is currently a professor of English literature at Dae-jin University.

흰꽃, 정수리에서터지다

홍은택

정수리는몸통의끝,

정신이바람을불러들이는숨구멍이다

사막을건너는데오십년이걸렸다

네손길이만지고간가시끝마다붉은핏방울

그힘으로견딘상처가흰꽃잎으로핀다

시간의모래땅에서펌프질로끌어올린

내오랜그리움이팝콘처럼터진다

지금바람을향해열린꽃잎들의문

하루해가가기전어둡게닫힐테지만, 오늘밤

감각이정신으로바뀌는통점(痛點)에서꽃은환히핀다

흰꽃은붉은피보다더붉다

선인장흰꽃은정수리에서터진다

 

White Flowers have Popped from the Crown

 

The crown is the top of your body,

the windpipe where soul invites wind.

Crossing the desert has taken you fifty years.

Every tip of thorns your hands touched is bearing red beads of blood;

Endured wounds are now popping into white petals.

My long yearning, being pumped up from the sands of time,

is now bursting forth like popcorn.

The door of petals, now open toward wind,

will close in darkness when the day passes by, but tonight

flowers bloom brightly from the painful spots

where feeling becomes soul.

The white flowers are more scarlet than red blood;

White cactus flowers have popped from the crown.

 

* The poet’s note: This poem was based on my living with giant Saguaro cacti in the Arizona-Sonora Desert for one year. The white flowers of the Saguaro cactus wait for fifty years to bloom for just one day. The spot where the flowers bloom is the very “crown” of the body. The crown, “the windpipe,” “the top of your body,” is the positive source of life. A cactus is a plant that grows wild in the severe living conditions of the desert. The cactus with its strong life force therefore has a thread of connection with the spirit.