korean Poem "Waiting for the Whale" by Ahn Do hyun

 Waiting for the Whale

(Winner of the 1999 Kim Sowol Poetry Award)

                                                   By Ahn Do-hyun

Waiting for the Whale

I was there by the sea of ​​Jangsaengpo.

Someone said the whale would not return—

that even if it did, it would remain unseen.

Filled with sorrow, I sat at the end of the breakwater

and gazed only at the sea.

I waited, even knowing that what one waits for does not come;

I waited, knowing that life is a cycle of waiting until one grows weary.

While waiting for the whale,

I watched the waves suckling at the breast of the shore.

With every breath it exhaled,

I thought that the sea—heaving its shoulders—

might well be a whale itself.