Kim Sowol. The Road.

  
Again last night  
at a country inn  
crows cried at dawn.  
  
Today 
how many miles 
again lead where? 
 
Away to the mountains, 
to the plains? 
With no place that calls me 
I go nowhere. 
 
Don’t talk of my home, 
Chongju, Kwaksan, 
while the train and the boat go there. 
 
Hear me, wild geese in the sky: 
is there a road in the air 
that you travel so sure? 
 
Hear me, wild geese in the sky: 
I stand at the center of the crossroads. 
Again and again the paths branch, 
but no way is mine. 

ENJOY MORE
The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
Translated, with an introduction, by DAVID R. McCANN. Series: Weatherhead Books on Asia. Copyright Date: 2007.