Ku Sang

• As this country rocked like a boat in Galilee’s storms,
• I spent the whole year not losing my belief in God alone,
• just doing as I could what had to be done.
• Laid up, sick, I suffered for more than a month,
• there were many hard things in the family and the world,
• but having endured it all meekly, it proved more valuable
• than any good fortune could have been.
• These days, as I dream bright dreams of the world beyond,
• entrusting all things to His divine Will,
• even if storms are forecast for the coming New Year
• there is nothing I fear.
• — “This Year,” by Ku Sang, (trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé).

Ku Sang (1919–2004) was a Korean poet who began his writing career as a journalist in North Korea. After the end of World War II, Communist authorities resisted his efforts to publish poetry and so Sang fled south. He became a regular contributor to the Seoul daily Kyonghyang. Besides verse, Sang also wrote essays on literature, social issues, and religion. His poetry is marked by an imagistic directness and plain style, which, translator Brother Anthony describes as “the evocation of a personal moment of perception…where the poem frequently turns into a meditation on the presence of Eternity in the midst of time.”