Two Poems by Manhae
from Everything Yearned For
Translated by Francisca Cho. Published by Wisdom 2005

Master’s Sermon

I heard the master’s sermon:
“Don’t be bound to the chains of love and suffer.
Cut the ties and your mind will find joy.”

That master is quite a fool.
To be bound with ties of love is painful, but to cut them
is more painful than death.
In the tight bind of love’s ties lies its unbinding.
Thus great liberation lies in bondage.
My love, I feared that the ties that bind me to you might be weak,
so I’ve doubled the strands of my love.

 

Preface: Idle Words

“Nim” is not only a human lover but everything yearned for.
All beings are nim for the Buddha, and philosophy is nim for Kant.
The spring rain is nim for the rose, and Italy is the nim for Mazzini.
Nim is what I love, but it also loves me.

If romantic love is freedom, then so is my nim.
But aren’t you attached to the lofty name of freedom?
Don’t you also have a nim? If so it is only your shadow.

I write these poems for the young lambs wandering lost
on the road home from the darkening plains.



"Nim" is a Chines/Korean meaning 'the beloved', the longed for.