Korean Short Stories
Song Chanho Giraffe 기린 Translated by Wayne de Fremery
Information This work was previously published in New Writing from Korea . Please contact the LTI Korea Library. library@klti.or.kr
Giraffe On top of the giraffe's long, lofty head there are vestiges of an ancient hilltop lake. I wonder who put the thirsty gourds up there? And in those missionary days how did the clams climb into those waters? Counting stars one night, we used the giraffe's neck as a net handle and landed some. Those grazed by his head crooned and time flew like stars falling. I fell more than once when I was young, climbing the sunflowers to remove the stones adults had weighed the heads down with to stunt their growth. Now I know the sorrow of the yellow-billed oxpecker in Africa hanging from the giraffe's steep neck and back eating ticks. Ah, to buy one day a ticket for the orbiting train that scales his nape to cross the plateau, to collect the homerun ball knocked out of a distant park to give to children, to wander and pick icy red lilies that resemble his horns. Hey, he said, coming close, wearing a pointy hat and balloons strung in clusters around his neck. I'm tied up today because it's Children's Day, but when the zoo closes sometime soon, let's go for a bite in the reeds. Look at that ridiculous creature lumbering back to the kids who call after him. Look at the last chieftain of the poetry tribe.
Copyright 2008 Literature Translation Institute of Korea
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