Eunhang
Namu, Danpoong Namu:
The Maple Wears Red, The Gingko Wears Yellow
I
walked today among the rocks
and
foliage of Soraksan
fall
filling the air
stopping
to eat a bit of gamja buchim
to
sip a little makoli with haraboji.
Grandfather
passed me the rice wine,
and
we ate the potato pancakes as
he
told me the story of Sun Nyeo,
who
flew back to the stars after
visiting
the pool beside our table,
a
place in which she chose to bathe
because
of its great beauty.
I
looked down beside us,
over
the rocks, at the cold, crystal
clear
water within the basin, in which
a
single leaf, red and gold, was
turning
in the flow of the stream
as
it drifted down from the mountain.
Grandfather
and I watched
the
birds flying among the branches
of
the trees, the red of the maple,
the
yellow of the ginko,
the
leaves of the cherry turning
from
green to gold to red to brown:
our
youth spent, the harvest of our labor
the
blood of the sacrifice, and finally our return.
I
looked up and saw a tree
growing
out of the side of the mountain,
out
of solid rock, and remembered
the
stories told of how a tree that grows
too
large will bring itself crashing down
from
the burden of its own weight.
As
I returned from the mountain,
walking
through Buddha’s Gate
I
watched halmonee peeling
a
persimmon for a young couple
and
thought of how years ago
in
her youth, this grandmother had paid
an
old woman to do the same for her.
Seoraksan (Snowy Crags Mountain) is the 3rd-highest mountain in South Korea, near Sokcho. Its Daechongbong peak is 1,708 m (5,603 ft) high. The autumn colors in the area are considered amongst the most beautiful in Korea. Once God summoned all of the rocks in Korea to come together to create the world's most beautiful mountain, Geumgangsan, in North Korea, which is named differently depending on the season [in the summer it is Pongraesan (the place where a Spirit dwells), in autumn, Phung'aksan (great mountain of colored leaves), in winter, Kaegolsan (stone bone mountain)], but an enormous rock from Ulsan arrived too late to be incorporated, but it settled at Seoraksan and became Ulsanbawi. Sun Nyeo was a heavenly nymph-like being who went to the rocky pool at Biseondae to bathe. The "Valley of a Thousand Buddhas" is so-called because the rock formations that line its sides resemble a line-up of Buddha statues. A haraboji is a grandfather or an elderly man, while a halmonee is a grandmother or an elederly woman. "Gamja buchim" are potato pancakes with shredded vegetables such as squash, zucchini, leeks, and peppers. Makoli ("mak" means "roughly, coarsely, recklessly, carelessly" and "geoll" is a deverbal noun derived from the verb "georeu" meaning "to strain, sift, filter") is a milky, slightly sweet alcoholic beverage made from nuruk, a fermenation starter, mixed with rice (or sometimes wheat).
ReplyDeleteWhat a dream team! My respite well spent~ thanks from a local ;)
ReplyDeleteIt takes me back to the place. Haven't been there for 7 years. Fall was my favourite season there. It was perfect!!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written.
ReplyDelete