Lights Along the Road · Hiroshi Kanda
Chapter 40: Believing in Meeting Again
The Words: Han Yong-un, 1926
In 1926, Han Yong-un published a collection of poems called The Silence of Love. Its title poem begins with a parting. In my own words, the speaker says: my love has gone. Breaking through the green light of the mountains, along a small path towards the maple forest, my love tore away and left. The poem remembers old vows and the memory of a first kiss, and the grief that followed. But the poem does not stop in grief. In one of its most famous lines, the speaker says, in my own words: just as we fear parting when we meet, we believe in meeting again when we part.
The speaker also says, in my own words, that the great force of sorrow was carried over and poured onto the head of a new hope. The poem ends, in my own paraphrase, with these words: my love has gone, but I have not let my love go. The silence of the title is not empty. A song of love, the poem says, keeps circling around it.
The Life Behind the Words
Han Yong-un was born in 1879 and wrote in Korean. As a young man, he became a Buddhist monk, and he spent many years in temples in the mountains, studying, meditating and writing. He thought deeply about how the old teachings of the Buddha could be lived in a changing modern world, and he wrote about how Buddhist life might be renewed. He was a thinker and a teacher as well as a poet.
The Silence of Love is written in free verse, and it became one of the great works of modern poetry in his language. Readers have long asked who the "love" of the poems is. It may be a loved person. It may be the truth that he sought as a monk, or the Buddha, or something even larger. Han Yong-un left the question open, so that each reader could find their own answer. He died in 1944. His poems show a faith that love continues, even in silence and absence.
What the Words Ask of Us
The words ask us to face partings with hope. Every life is full of them. Friends move away, children grow up and leave home, colleagues change jobs, and those we love are sometimes separated from us for a long time. It is natural to feel sorrow. Han Yong-un does not tell us to hide it. He shows us how to turn it. The fear of parting comes with every meeting, and in the same way, the hope of meeting again can come with every parting.
Think of Jonas, a man in his seventies whose granddaughter is moving far away to study. On the day she leaves, he feels a heavy sadness and worries that he will not see her often. Then he decides to give her a small notebook in which he has written a letter, and he asks her to write back. Months pass, and the letters go back and forth. When she visits at last, they have so much to say. The parting was real. So was the meeting again.
Similar Words From Around the World
Nearly a thousand years ago, the poet Su Shi wrote a famous poem in Chinese at the mid-autumn festival, when the moon is full, thinking of his younger brother far away. In my own words, he says: people have sorrow and joy, parting and meeting, just as the moon is dim or bright, full or waning. Then he wishes that they may both live long and share the beauty of the same moon, though they are a thousand li apart. A li is an old measure of distance. Su Shi adds the comfort of nature to Han Yong-un's faith. Parting and meeting come and go like the moon, and the same moon shines on both.
In the tea tradition of East Asia, there is a phrase in Japanese, ichigo ichie, which means "one time, one meeting". In my own words: treat each meeting as one that will never come again. At first this may seem to go in the opposite direction from Han Yong-un's hope. But the two fit well together. Because partings are sure to come, every meeting is precious. And because we believe in meeting again, partings need not break our hearts. One teaches us to treasure the present, and the other teaches us to trust the future.
Living It Today
These words can help anyone who is living through a parting. A young person leaving home, a parent watching a child go, a friend whose friend has moved away, and an older person who has lost touch with old companions can all hold on to the poet's faith. Distance does not end love. Silence does not end it either. What we carry in our hearts is still with us, and the road back to each other often remains open.
Here is something to try this week. Think of one person you have parted from, perhaps long ago, and whom you still think of with warmth. If it is possible, send them a short message, a letter or a call, simply to say that you remember them. If it is not possible, write a few lines about what they gave you. Love that has not been let go is still alive, and it can make today brighter.
Chapter 41: Calm in the Middle of the Noise
The Words: Max Ehrmann, 1927
In 1927, Max Ehrmann wrote a prose poem called "Desiderata", a word from Latin that means "things that are wished for". It begins: "Go placidly amid the noise and haste". In the lines that follow, he gives quiet advice for daily life: to be on good terms with others, to speak your truth quietly and clearly, to enjoy what you have done as well as your plans, to be gentle with yourself, and to keep peace in your soul. Near the end, in my own words, he admits that the world is full of pretence, dull hard work and broken dreams. And then he says: "it is still a beautiful world."
The poem has a curious history. After Ehrmann's death, it appeared in a collection of his poems. Later, a church leader printed it without the author's name in a set of readings for the people of his church, on paper that showed the old year in which the church had been founded. Copies spread widely, and many people came to believe that the poem was an ancient text found in an old church. It was not. Max Ehrmann wrote it in 1927, and it is his.
The Life Behind the Words
Max Ehrmann was born in 1872 in the Americas, into a family whose parents had come from Europe. He studied at university, including philosophy and law, and for some years he worked as a lawyer and in business. But writing was what he loved most. In time, he left business to give more of his days to poems, essays and plays. He was not widely famous during his lifetime, and he lived a fairly quiet life.
He died in 1945. He could not have known how far his words would travel after his death, printed on posters, hung on walls and copied by hand for friends. Perhaps the poem spread so widely because it sounds like advice from a calm and kind older friend. It does not promise that life will be easy. It simply suggests a way to walk through life with dignity, gentleness and hope.
What the Words Ask of Us
The words ask us to keep a calm centre inside ourselves while the world rushes around us. Noise and haste are everywhere: in traffic, in crowded shops, in messages that never stop arriving, in news that seems to shout. We cannot always escape these things. But we can choose not to let them rule our hearts. "Go placidly" does not mean doing nothing. It means moving through the day without being pushed and pulled by every sound.
Think of Martin, who drives a delivery van all day. His phone keeps buzzing, the roads are full, and every customer is waiting. For years he arrived home tired and tense. One day he decides to change one small thing. Between deliveries, he takes three slow breaths before he starts the engine again. It sounds like very little. But after a few weeks, Martin notices that he feels calmer, that he is kinder to the people at the doors, and that he still sees the beauty of a sunset on the way home.
Similar Words From Around the World
Nearly two thousand years ago, a ruler of a great empire named Marcus Aurelius wrote private notes to himself in Greek, now known as the Meditations. In one of them he says, in my own words: people look for quiet places to escape to, in the country, by the sea or in the hills. But you can withdraw into yourself at any hour you like. This echo shows that the calm Ehrmann describes is not a luxury for people with free time. Even a busy ruler could find it, because it lies within.
In the 1600s, Blaise Pascal, a thinker and mathematician who wrote in French, left notes that were later published as the Pensées, which means "thoughts". In one of them he says, in my own words: much of human unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in one room. Pascal adds a gentle challenge to Ehrmann's advice. We often run into noise and haste ourselves, because silence feels uncomfortable. Learning to sit quietly, even for a short time, may be the first step towards the calm the poem describes.
Living It Today
These words can help anyone who feels overwhelmed. A student with many tasks, a worker with a full inbox, a parent with a noisy house and an older person living alone with the television always on may all need a quiet centre. The poem does not ask us to leave our lives. It asks us to carry peace into them. And it reminds us, even on hard days, that the world is still beautiful.
Here is something to try this week. Once a day, choose five minutes to sit in silence, without your phone, music or anything to read. You may sit by a window, on a bench or at your kitchen table. Simply breathe and notice what is around you. At first it may feel strange. Then, little by little, it may feel like coming home. With all its noise and trouble, it is still a beautiful world, and we can learn to see it calmly.