In the sky where seasons pass me by,
Autumn’s filled up high and nigh.
No worries drift, no heavy sigh,
I’ll count the stars that brightly fly.
One star shines with memories old,
One star with love so bright and bold,
One with longing, one with dreams,
Another shines with poet’s gleams.
One for mother, far away,
I call her name in the starlit sway.
In my heart, the stars they glow,
Yet dawn breaks soon, the night must go.
Tomorrow night, more stars will rise,
For youth in me still brightly lies.
Each star I count, a name, a face,
Old friends from school, I still retrace.
Pat, Kyung, Ok—those foreign girls,
Now mothers too, with life’s small pearls.
The poor who lived just down the way,
Pigeons, puppies, rabbits play.
And poets—oh, so far they seem,
Like distant stars in hazy dream.
One star shines with memories old,
One star with love so bright and bold,
One with longing, one with dreams,
Another shines with poet’s gleams.
One for mother, far away,
I call her name in the starlit sway.
Mother, you are far from sight,
In northern lands, beneath the night.
I carve my name upon the hill,
Where starlight falls so soft and still.
But then I hide it deep in clay,
As shameful names may fade away.
Yet like the grass that blooms in spring,
Someday my name will proudly sing.
On grassy hills, like banners high,
My name will rise beneath the sky.
The crying bugs that hum till day,
They mourn for names now washed away.
But winter fades, and spring will bloom,
And stars will shine above my tomb.
The stars will rise, the stars will fall,
But I will bloom beneath them all.
The grass will grow where once I lay,
And proudly sway beneath the day.
One star shines with memories old,
One star with love so bright and bold,
One with longing, one with dreams,
Another shines with poet’s gleams.
One for mother, far away,
I call her name in the starlit sway.