The Sea's Unending Editions

**쇄** What is the sea printing so incessantly? Waves, waves advancing, printing thus? White clouds drifting across the blue sky, Islands, islands, islands blooming in the Dadohae archipelago's flower garden, A handful of lighthouse lights, seven or eight sheets of wave sounds, Even schools of young fish swarming and scattering— The sea's 쇄 prints them all without omission. One 쇄 with the incoming tide, two 쇄 with the ebbing tide, It prints without pause, Producing revised editions teeming with life. -Jeong Il-geun (1958–) ---------------- '쇄' is a unit counting the number of times a book is published. The poet says the sea ceaselessly prints different books. These books are revised editions, each newly published after correcting and supplementing the original content. Then, what is the content of what the sea publishes? It includes the high sky, moving clouds, flower-like islands, lighthouse lights, wave sounds, schools of fish, and so on. Just as one pushes a stencil duplicator to print something, the sea publishes books by pushing waves. In them, everything is encompassed: the sea's surface and depths, day and night, sights and sounds, and the intricate, dense movements of life. In Jeong Il-geun's other poem, *Sea*, there is a dialogue with a boy with clear eyes from the Himalayan mountains. The poet wrote, 'When the boy asked how deep the sea is,/ I could only say, 'Look into your own pupils in a mirror./ That is the depth of the sea.'' This is because the boy's pupils could contain Mount Everest and more. Here, I saw a poetic sensibility like the sea.