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Buddhist : Zen / Chan
Contemporary

About Ko Un

Timeline (1933 - )

 Ko Un, Ko Un poetry, Buddhist, Buddhist poetry, Zen / Chan poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry

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English version by
Brother Anthony

Original Language
Korean
Arrows

Themes
  Pain and Wounding
 
 
 
 

 

Recommended Books

Flowers of a Moment, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
Little Pilgrim: A Novel, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
Ten Thousand Lives, by Ko Un / Translated by Brother Anthony of Taize
The Three Way Tavern: Selected Poems, by Ko Un / Translated by Clare You
What?: 108 Zen Poems, by Ko Un

Transformed into arrows
let's all go, body and soul!
Piercing the air
let's go, body and soul,
with no way of return,
transfixed there,
rotting with the pain of striking home,
never to return.

One last breath! Now, let's quit the string,
throwing away like rags
all we've had for decades
all we've enjoyed for decades
all we've piled up for decades,
happiness,
the lot.
Transformed into arrows
let's all go, body and soul!

The air is shouting! Piercing the air
let's go, body, and soul!
In dark daylight the target is rushing towards us.
Finally, as the target topples
     in a shower of blood,
let's all just once as arrows
     bleed.

Never to return!
Never to return!

Hail, arrows, our nation's arrows!
Hail, Warriors! Spirits of the fallen!

 

 

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.