담장 너머로 풍겨오는 잘 익은 향기

다니던 길 벗어나

무엇인가 가보았더니

과연 사과나무 한 그루

여름의 짐을 편안히 내려놓고

잎사귀 몇 개만 남겨 놓은 채

이제 여인의 부채처럼 가볍게 숨쉬고 있었다

왜냐하면 인간에게도 충분할만큼

가을 사과는 풍작이었기에

땅에도 빨간 원을 이루었다



안 거두어들인 무엇이 늘 있어 주었으면!

우리의 계획 밖에 있는 게 더 많아졌으면

사과든 무엇이든 잊어버린 채 남겨두어

그 향기를 맡는 게 죄가 안되도록


* 번역 박혜영(인하대 영문과 교수)


Unharvested

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.

And come to leave the routine road

And look for what had made me stall,

There sure enough was an apple tree

That had eased itself of its summer load,

And of all but its trivial foliage free,

Now breathed as light as a lady's fan.

For there had been an apple fall

As complete as the apple had given man.

The ground was one circle of solid red.



May something go always unharvested!

May much stay out of our stated plan,

Apples or something forgotten and left,

So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.


Frost, Robert. Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. Library of America, 1995.