Fisherman’s Morning

When morning first steps down through the

darkness

And the hour is already muggy with dew,

In this fishing village entire years

Gather and stand inches apart.

When the sky is no larger than a bean,

Than an aperture in the instant after the picture,

With a great motion

The fishermen are led by fishing nets.

It may be true that summer has a skin slick

As low-tide seawater,

But what better now than a cigarette

While it dawns on me that each fisherman’s stride

Is the single fact,

Is the beginning and the end

Of this life and this work.

From “Three Poets of Modern Korea: Yi Sang, Hahm Dong-seon and Choi Young-mi,” translated by Yu Jung-yul and James Kimbrell (Sarabande Books:

82 pp., $13.95 paper)