I try to hide it,
but still my love
burns within —
grasses of springtime
whose colors
show the more
clearly
for a layer

Ah, if only
the sight
of blossoms
at close of day
would
stay with me!
Then though asleep,
I would not part
from
my dream
of a spring night.

In evening's gloom,
I thought
I saw
the dim form
of the one I love,
there now
as a memento
in the haze
'round the dawn moon.

Think of it
as cruel —
but still
it brings back memories:
that glaring moon
that had
such a distant look
at the moment

My love was real,
yet treated as a joke—
in that long ago
childhood,
how I felt it!

The gloom that winter casts
How soon the heart forgets —
When summer brings at last —
The sun that never sets.
So love — when hope first gleams
Forgets its former pain —
Amidst those sunny beams
Which ne'er shall set again.

She comes each morning
with the sea on her head.

Fresh oysters for sale, fresh oysters!
She cries like the sunlight,

wrinkles rippling
though there isn't a puff of wind,

hands filled with thunderous storm clouds.

When will it rain,
when will it rain?

Her firm buttocks
are rolling breakers.

Faster than the dark,
lighter than a bird,

lovely, so lovely,
she strides beside the sun.

In sunlight suffused
with the glow of apples

on thin, distant branches
in orchards near Taegu,

morning shakes, as the train,
like an illness,
reaches now the height of its fever.

Love, my love
so far away:

in moments like this
even silk
round my waist

That person's name escapes me now
but her eyes and her lips
remain in my heart.

Even when the winds blow,
even when the rains fall,
outside the window, I can't forget
that night of streetlight shadows.

When love passes
what remains of the past —
a lakeside on a summer's day,
a park in autumn,
on that park bench,
the leaves falling,
the leaves turning to dust,
covered with leaves,
though we say love disappears —
that person's name escapes me now
but her eyes and her lips
remain in my heart,

Tapping, tapping the carved wooden fish,
overcome by drowsiness,

the lovely young monk
has drifted into sleep.

As the Buddha wordlessly
smiles, just smiles,

along the thousand league western border

under a dazzling evening sky,
peonies fall and fall.