Falling Apart

by Gene H. Ghong

Falling apart is easy to do - just let go.
Would I be conscious of my being in pieces?
There is the rub. As much as I'd want to let go,
I fear being in a strange place
forever looking back on the other side
that once was a familiar but painful place.
It is the fear of not knowing what it's like
and the knowledge of what I'm leaving behind.
If it's like a membrane penetrable back and forth
that separates those flimsy structures,
then it would be too painful -
traveling between the Land of the Whole
and the Underworld of the Pieces.
Ay, the rub, sticking intolerably. That insolubility!

Giorgio Skory

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자기가 가진 능력과 가능성을 힘 있는 자에게 보태며 달콤하게 살다가 자연사할 것인지, 그것을 힘없는 자와 나누며 세상의 불공평, 기회의 불공평과 맞서 싸우다 장렬히 전사할 것인지, 혹은 평생 새장 속에 살면서 안전과 먹이를 담보로 날 수 있는 능력을 스스로 포기할 것인지, 새장 밖의 위험을 감수하면서 가지고 있는 능력의 최대치를 발휘하여 창공으로 비상할 것인지.

What would it be? To live out your days in comfort, offering your potential and capabilities to the rich and powerful, or to use them for the poor and powerless, fight against inequality of opportunity and of the world, and die a brave death; to settle in the life in the bird cage for security and food, or to soar into the sky to the best of your strength at the risk of the dangers outside the cage?



한비야, ‘지도 밖으로’, pp. 13-14.
Trans. Gene