Poet's words

Part 1: Why I Still Like the World
Sleep/March Tree/84p/Mugwort Soup/That Spring/April Sleep/Condolences/On the Way to the Bathhouse/Ah,/Life and Forecast/Yeonpung/Only Our Lies/Day and Night

Part 2: Keep your eyes far away
Summer's work/ Chobok/ At the end of the night and the hand/ Our heaven/ Sweet rain/ Where the heart leans/ Voice/ Rock/ Baemsagol/ Oreum/ Rainy season/ Buckwheat noodles/ Chuseok/ Perennials

Part 3: The Good Things That Come After a Day or Two
Neunggok Villa/ The end of autumn/ The heart, the hill/ Lake guesthouse/ In front of your clear eyes, things like your clear eyes/ Side by side/ Full of names/ Inside and outside/ The house of the maze/ Jongam-dong/ A child by the riverside/ Anchovies/ Autumn rites

Part 4 Those words will shake each other's heads
Forest/Winter's Words/Good World/Southbound Train/Sleep's Flesh is Cold/Big Snow, Paju/Sal/Winter Rain/Today/Ipchun Diary/Lighthouse at the End of the World 3

After enduring all the time alone
Words from the past arriving in the present

The words we shared long ago have not been forgotten, and even now, we are walking deep into the forest. By today, the words of that summer will have just arrived.
―The “Forest” section

The speaker of this collection of poems is a person who waits.
The answers to “things we wonder about during the day” can only be found “when the night falls” (“Day and Night”).
However, what Park Jun's speaker "I" is waiting for is not something in the future, but something that has already passed in the past.
The words of greeting we used to affectionately call each other in the past, the everyday words that could have been quickly forgotten.
The words that come to me today are scenes from memories that happened in the past.
According to Shin Hyeong-cheol, for Park Jun, the past “does not flow away to a distant past, but rather comes back to the present when the time comes.”


By the time this article reaches you
We might be able to see the rainy season together, he said.
I wrote a new letter to start with
―Excerpt from "Rainy Season - Letter from Taebaek"

If the past arrives in the present, then this moment will inevitably lead to the future.
In Taebaek, “I” write two letters.
In my first letter I write about the “miners who died in the mines,” but I soon “crumpled up the paper.”
And in the second letter, he writes a new letter that begins with the sentence, “Maybe we can see the rainy season together.”
If the first letter tells what has already happened, the next letter contains instructions for what will happen in the future.
I haven't reached the future yet, but if I spend my present faithfully, my future self can head to that very place where I can watch the rainy season with you.


Living one step ahead of you
'caretaker

I don't know if I'll be here until then, but these days, it's good to think about the long term. When I do, I open my mouth slightly, stick my chin out, and make a face that seems to indicate I'm waiting for someone. My eyes are also quite distant, as if I'm willing to wait longer.
―Excerpt from "Buckwheat Noodles - Letters from Cheorwon"

So then, what exactly is the speaker waiting for in this collection of poems?
Earlier we discussed the point at which the words you and I shared in the past reach me in the present.
Perhaps what the speaker is waiting for is the person with whom he shared those words, in other words, 'you', or in the poet's words, 'beauty'.
The 'I' who "counts the long time" and "makes an expression of waiting for someone" is someone I broke up with in the past.
And he would be someone who would want to care for you enough to immediately stop what he was doing at the slightest sound of “you opening the window” (p. 84).
Although not intense, Shin Hyeong-cheol uses the word “care” to describe the mind that sharpens one’s sense of touch at every moment in life.
According to him, Park Jun's care is "living the other person's future once first and then living it once more with you," and therefore the speaker of this poetry collection can be seen as "someone who lives a little earlier."


In Park Jun's first collection of poems, the speaker comes down "after pushing you into the fire pit today," and recalls the small birthday meal he received from you in the past.
In the last collection of poems, “I”, who was taking care of my ruined place with memories of being cared for by the other person, goes on to take care of you in this collection of poems.
The way the poet chose to take care of you was through food.
Just like the birthday table that soothed my heart in the past, it is not fancy, but I am preparing simple food that you will enjoy eating.
“Take out the winter radish” and “cut it into similar sizes” and store it (“Tree of March”), or “dissolve mugwort and soybean paste” and think about making soup (“Mugwort Soup”).
I think of wrapping up stir-fried doraji for someone who cannot eat rice ("April Sleep"), or making dumpling filling with white cabbage ("Buckwheat Noodles").
The mindset to prepare things that you will enjoy eating, “This kind of determination is often called ‘resolution,’” but here I will call it “resolution.”
“The determination to care, that is Park Jun’s love” (Shin Hyeong-cheol).