Meeting on a Byroad

 

 

We agreed to meet on a byroad and parted. Each of us were on a road off of which branched countless byroads, but we parted as if we would surely recognize the one we decided to meet on. On the first byroad there were fallen leaves. The leaves covered the road. The season had arrived there early and in fullness. The leafy road was good to arrange meetings in and good to imagine the shade of out-of-season trees in. The possibility of tree shade led to the possibility of upcoming seasons. And the upcoming seasons called forth the possibility of a love that streams together under the pea-colored leaves. When I passed love’s byroad, the puddle’s byroad appeared. And the puddles, cold and clear, were good for looking at the reflections of things. And for hopping over, unbeknownst to all. And for wetting your two feet, the ones you keep hidden. The puddle was calling forth its watery shadow. And, on the dry soil, drawing today’s sky. Hop over the one and only sky of today. Hop over the one and only cloud in today’s sky. Hop over the leaf drifting between the clouds in the cold, clear sky. Now hop over the lushness of the tree that is no longer there. We kept arriving, arriving somewhere. Covered with things that were not me. Wrapped up in things that were empty of you. When we went forward, forward, the next byroad began to appear. As always, we were standing on the byroad by the byroad, by and by. We met, no longer knowing where we’d agreed to meet. Thinking we’d passed that place long ago. Where there had been yesterday’s restaurant, there was today’s restaurant. Where there had been a mailbox, a bleached wood sign. And red gravel, in place of the green grass. Even as we’re endlessly bisected, by and by. Even as we flow forth, tumbling along. We meet again, here, once more. On this endlessly bifurcating road. When I turned my head, you and I of long ago were meeting by the byroad by the byroad. We’ll meet again, as long as there remains a scene that waits for words. Writing, push through the sentence that knows no end and you arrive at the shade of a forgotten tree. My face, reflected in a single puddle, flowed in layers and layers.

 

 

 

The Night’s Direction and Marble Games

 

The mountain I knew was one that wouldn’t open. The marble I knew was like that too, wouldn’t ever roll. What forces act on things that roll? You asked this with the face of an old hermit, as if scrutinizing the curvature of outer space. On a flat plane rather than a curved surface. There is a mountain that only opens and shows itself when the will to perceive space and time is active. Your face doesn’t resonate at all. It’s like a marble of dust that shows itself only through the scattering of light. Your face was rolled up like an ancient papyrus scroll. No one could read your interior anymore so you began to roll. Rolling in the direction of all those dust marbles. To roll was to be thrown. To be thrown was to be abandoned. And to be abandoned was to love. Because in those days, the only things we were willing to throw were the things we’d loved with all our hearts. The dust marble was rolling endlessly from mountain to mountain. How is it that we keep shaking in these scenes from a long-ago night? You asked this fixing your face into an old one again, so I looked at your mouth. To write down the sentence, verbatim, that the mouth of darkness opened to reveal. To bury in my heart the afterimage of light that unfolds only in the dark. But night is a thing that flows and flows. That layers and layers over itself and then dissipates. And the hermit’s forest was opened a long time ago, said the old mouth. I cradled my face as though I were groping the elderly one. The birds were fleeing, differently. The crowds of night were flying bluely. The world was making invisible holes and throwing in the loved ones, one by one. If you can die well, you can live well too. Like dancing, like dancing. I wrote that down, before I even woke up. In that barely-recalled memory of night. In the delusion of a world I believed I could touch. Rolling, rolling still, from one direction to the next, infinitely. There was a night when I rolled my heart, rounded and still-soft. It used to be that something in my chest would sink if I wrote the name of a living person in red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Lee Jenny

 

Translated by Hedgie Choi