One through Protest,
Medium | 19.01.2026 08:46
One through Protest,
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The other through Poetry.
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What We Must Not Forget
A familiar name I heard throughout my high school world history classes in Korea – Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Maybe, At that time, the person who felt most deeply connected to Dr. King in my heart was none other than the Korean poet Yun Dong-ju.)
For a long time, however, I knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr only as “the leader of the Black civil rights movement.”
I understood him merely as a historical figure, not realizing that his voice and life were a language of peace, forged through a struggle against the deep inner anguish of the human soul.
In my twenties, I immersed myself in records, films, and poetry depicting the era of racial discrimination and violence against Black Americans.
Their pain naturally overlapped with our nation’s own suffering under Japanese colonial rule.
At that time, the person who felt most deeply connected to Dr. King in my heart was none other than the poet Yun Dong-ju.
Both were individuals who embodied through their lives the power of nonviolence.
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Reflecting on their lives, I confronted the shame within myself – and wrote a poem.
〈A Certain Poet〉
<어떤 시인>
There was a certain poet.
어떤 시인이 있었습니다.
Even his single six-mat room was not his own
그의 육첩방 한칸도 자기 것이 아닌
but belonged to another’s country —
남의 나라의 것이라고한 –
a tender youth,
여리숙한 청춘,
who cried out in silent anguish.
소리 없는 아우성을 친 사람.
I cannot dare compare my life to his youth.
그의 청춘과 저는 감히 비할 바가 못됩니다.
Watching the morning arrive each day,
매일 아침이 오는 것을 보고
he even said it came “easily.”
그는 “쉽게” 찾아온다고 까지 말했습니다.
Perhaps the morning that arrived as if by right felt burdensome to him.
당연한듯 찾아오는 아침이 맞이하는 아침이 부담스러웠나봅니다.
What in life is truly easy?
사는 것이 쉬운 것이 뭐가 있겠느냐만은
Yet today, I still seek
그럼에도 오늘의 저는
a place to hide, ashamed
부끄러워 숨을 곳을 찾습니다.
of my longing for even a little more comfort.
조금이라도 편해지고자 하는 제 갈망이 이토록 부끄러울까요.
He was never comfortable.
그분은 결코 편하지 못했습니다.
Even his path to heaven was blood-soaked from torture.
그분의 천국으로 가는 길조차 고문으로 피범벅이 되어 있었습니다.
I have a bed where I can close my eyes and rest in peace,
저는 두 눈을 감고 편히 잘 수 있는 침대가 있지만,
yet I cannot stretch out my legs.
두 다리는 펴지 못합니다.
I don’t know why.
이유는 알 수 없습니다.
Just as the six-mat room belonged to another country,
육첩방이 남의 나라였던것 같이
perhaps I feel my own home is not truly mine.
제 집도 남의 것이라 여겨지는 탓일까요.
Who was ever born because they wished to be born?
태어나고 싶어서 태어난 자가 누가 있으며,
Who is desperate to die?
죽고 싶어 안달이 난 자가 누가 있겠습니까.
And so today, once again,
그래서 오늘도 저는, 다시 한 번,
I honor that poet
그 어떤 시인을 기리며
and endure another day.
오늘을 견뎌 봅니다.
Praying that
그리고 기도합니다.
“the morning that comes so easily
“쉬이 오는 아침이
is never truly easy,”
결코 쉬운 것이 아님을,”
and that tomorrow may arrive as gratitude.
내일은 ‘감사’로 찾아오기를요.
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Writing this poem, I faced my own desires and shame. Even in an ordinary day without torture or prison, I could not deny my wish to be “just a little more comfortable.”
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Dr. King —a man who could not rest easily, even under the constant threat of prison and assassination.
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He was shot down on April 4, 1968,
in Memphis, where he had gone to support a strike by Black sanitation workers —killed by a white supremacist.
He was only thirty-nine.
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Yet in that brief life,
he awakened the conscience of millions.
That resonance has not ceased; it continues to illuminate the morning of this land – ‘America.’
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Though separated by time and space,
Yun Dong-ju and Martin Luther King stood beneath the same pitch-black darkness.
Their pain transcends eras, remaining as an Invisible Nourishment sustaining the society in which we now breathe.
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How often do we remember their noble sacrifice?
I truly hope that the small seeds they planted will bloom white like cotton bolls, and be remembered as flowers of freedom and equality.
P.S.📜
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Poet Yun Dong-ju..
I look forward to the day we meet again in heaven.
May you be at peace..
— With all my heart, Nina Song .
