Walking Tall

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One thought on “Walking Tall

  1. A poem here to go with your photo shadows are vital ! 🙂 Dave & Kim 🙂

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    Jeong Ho-seung’s poem (2)

    Translated by Brother Anthony and Susan Hwang

    http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/07/181_182453.html

    I do not love people who have no shadows.
    I do not love people who do not love shadows.
    I love people who have become the shade
    beneath a tree.

    Sunlight, too, needs shade to shine bright
    and dazzle the eyes.
    Sitting in the shade of a tree and watching
    the sunlight sparkling between the leaves,
    how beautiful the world is then.

    I do not love people who have no tears.
    I do not love people who do not love tears.
    I love people who have become one teardrop.

    Joy, too, is no joy without tears. And is there ever love without tears?
    The sight of someone sitting in the shade of a tree wiping away another’s tears, what quiet beauty that is.

    The Korea Times has begun to publish Jeong Ho-seung’s poems every Thursday. Jeong is the most widely read and well-loved poet in Korea today. His work expresses the joy and sorrow of life in ways that are immediately accessible to people of all ages. He has won the So Wol Literary Award, the Jeong Ji-yong Literary Award, the Sanghwa Poetry Award, and the Gongcho Literary Award. The fundamental contrast in “The People I Love” is between “shadows” in the first stanza and “tears” in the second; the “shadows” turn into the pleasant shade beneath a tree, shelter in which to discover the beauty of the world in sunlight. The tears are needed because there can be no true love without them, without pain and sorrow. But at this point the poem returns to the shade of a tree, where now two people are sitting, one wiping away the other’s tears. That compassion is seen to be the finest, quiet beauty.

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