High summer once again

“A lyric poet looks into the mirror and a novelist looks outside the window.” This is what Kim Jong-gil said in his text introducing a beautiful poet. It can be interpreted that while a poet sees the world by looking at himself in the mirror, a novelist finds himself by looking at the world. Then what would a poet see when he is looking out the window, not in the mirror? The answer lies in this poem.

An old poet is looking out of the window. His description of a scene of high summer is very inspirational. The rain shower stopped but cicadas are still singing. After watering the world, the rain stopped, and now cicadas are taking turns to water all around with their songs. The rain and cicadas are not the same, and the water and sound are different. The poet, however, brushes aside the thought, saying that it is just a prejudice.

The world was once wet by a sudden shower, and once dunked by the song of cicadas. It will be fully colored by something else next time. The law of warmhearted nature will fill this world one after another and disappear. Looking at that flow in silence, the poet seems to be smiling, thinking “You are here once again.” He did not write this poem looking through his eyes or listening through his ears. He wrote it looking and listening through his heart. The rain and heat that the poet met through the window were here because they had to. May they stay well and go safely. Let us meet once again in next year.