To live
is to meet
and to part.
My father lived for ninety-six years
and left this world.
As everyone does,
he was swept away
by the great torrent of time,
until at last he drifted down the river of time.
My father showed me my future.
No one can make their way upstream
against the torrent of time;
no matter how firmly one stands,
one day, too, one will be carried away
by its relentless current.
Poet Dr. Kang, Byeong-Cheol is a Korean author and poet, born in Jeju City, South Korea, in 1964. He began writing in 1993, publishing his first short story, “Song of Shuba,” at the age of twenty-nine. He released a collection of short stories in 2005 and has since won eight literature awards and published more than 20 books. From 2009 to 2014, he served as a member of The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International. Additionally, he worked as an editorial writer for JeminIlbo, a newspaper in Jeju City, Korea. He holds a PhD in Political Science and currently serves as the Vice President of The Korean Institute for Peace and Cooperation and vice president of Jeju PEN. Moreover, he holds the position of founding President of the Korean Association of World Literature
