LTI Korea 
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SIWF 
Two Poems by Song Jaehak scrap
by Song Jaehak
Translated by Jack Saebyok Jung
November 27, 2025
Author Bio 작가 소개
Song Jaehak
Ink Rubbing
The night before was cloudy, so an ink rubbing was just right. The moon was already soaked through. I gently lifted the seam of the clouds, and saw that to be drenched is the moon’s daily life. I borrowed the hands of the clouds and pressed porous mulberry paper across the whole reach of its light. The moon, unable to endure any longer, wriggled and slipped a furlong in one heave. Sleepless birds took turns going in and out of the glow. I tapped the paper with the dripping stalk of a water hyacinth, and the moon’s breath stopped for a moment. I fed the paper ink as old as the moon itself. The blunt cotton mallet was brought by a cumulus. I struck again, softly rubbing, gently circling, until the page swallowed ink by the bushel: a black eclipse, absolute midnight. Before the moon could sigh, I peeled the paper away and strung it on the long clothesline of the birds’ flight. By morning the rubbing of the moon was hanging: an ink rubbing without edges. The ink uneven, hidden patterns blotched through, but it dried well. One day I would like to see the sheen of a graphite rubbing.
Graphite Rubbing
I laid smooth mulberry paper across the moon and rubbed in the graphite, and first it was the coarse bark of trees that stood out. The moon’s faint warmth rose too, a carving in relief. From the collarbone branches of the moon, drowsing birds stirred in their sleep. If I shook the mulberry paper, even the young ones would fly back into the moon. I rubbed the paper again and the water’s surface spread in intaglio. For a moment a silvery surface of water shimmered, but the waterline kept falling. The weeds that once swayed on the lakebed stiffened under fluorescent light. It is all right, I said, all right, as I kept rubbing with patience. Cold silver lines floated up in clusters. They formed the moon’s path, a night-road from evening to dawn. When even the corners softened, a round border appeared, the kind you can hang around your neck. A single silver coin was born. I only wish the things it could purchase would outnumber mere survival.
Translator 번역가 소개
Jack Saebyok Jung
Jack Saebyok Jung is a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow and the author of Hocus Pocus Bogus Locus (Black Square Editions, 2025). A Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he co-translated Yi Sang: Selected Works (Wave Books, 2020), winner of the MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work. His next book of translation, Kim Hyesoon’s Lady No, will be published by Ecco in 2026. He teaches at Davidson College.
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