I Cannot Know
The paulownia leaf that gently falls, rippling the windless air—whose footprint is it? The glimpse of blue sky seen through rents in the ominous black clouds driven away by the west wind after the tedium of the long rains—whose face is it? The mysterious perfume that caresses the quiet sky over the old stupa on its way from the green moss on the tree in the remote dell which has not even a flower—whose breath is it? The small freshet, its source no one knows where, that winding splashes against the stones—whose song is it? The afterglow which beautifies the setting sun with hands like white jade caressing the endless heavens and heel like lotus flowers stepping across the boundless seas—whose poem is it? The ash left after burning becomes oil again; my breast that burns and never stops—whose night does this weak lamp watch?
— Han Yong-un (한용운), trans. Sammy Solberg, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry
