The Rust Tree by the Road

Abstract

(translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid) 1 In front of the window of my house A road stretches out; by the road a rust tree grows up every night. 2 All the pedestrians who can t remember the roads they have walked become rusty. Don't we, the poor, witness this down the roads we come and go upon daily? The houses crumble down and the roots of the rust tree move freely, punching big holes in the young one s lungs, collapsing the building s scaffolding. At first, the rust tree s root is fatigue gathered on the pedestrians soul, dust descending on the bread crumbs of memory, and paralysis and amnesia - the whole picture of our love - on the sky that we all possess we make an open graveyard and lie crowded. Already at the window rust leaves touch the lips. When one by one they cover the roof, children will become hags - even your lover will wither. It's fatal for the big tree, producing rust bloom flowers. Haven't we seen the houses on the road and the earth with words rusted away? On every road we traverse rust trees bloom like the dead of night even the birds of childhood and people change. 3 Beside me, about my love and around my house, blooming in a crowd, ah, the smell of rust. The Rust Tree Inside Me I've been sitting on the windowsill. What has gone wrong? Alongside a movie theater, a few bars, and a closed supermarket absurd red insects disappear I know there's not any place better than here. I feared the clock and the train, wars and horror movies, too. I was young then. I wondered if maybe a corpse was lying between the walls - a common fantasy. Where was Father then? When I saw innocent love, for a moment, my heart would stop. I've been sitting on the windowsill. I want to be a typist with perfect spelling. Sometimes I'd like to have a child, a scary thought. Without wheels and pedals, a bike is of no use. An unfortunate person walks, following an abandoned railroad track. There are things I would like to forget silently like the railroad disappearing, covered by overgrown grass. When the curtain descends, what kind of dream would fall in this window? My life like a birch tree that dares to sweep away Heaven - I once thought I would live like that. …