Curious animal poems.

The following are by the Korean poet, Kim Chang-Ho:

An Animal's Trail

When you are following an animal's trail,
it is very easy to lose the track.

Traces calmly printed
as it went prowling
in the vast world of the snow-bound hills
scrutinizing the opposite slopes

tracks sinking deep
as if it had suddenly turned, startled by something,
the distance narrowing

or huge footprints
suggesting it stood contemplating the hills
stealthily on the very brink of some cliff.

By the power of that fresh leading
I forget the human rags I wear
and go racing ahead with nostrils quivering

but then the track abruptly vanishes
beside some rock or behind a tree stump.

Perhaps that animal's trail was not my trail?
There is no trace of the form or footprints
of the animal hitherto preceding me.

Going astray in pursuit of an idea,
distracted at discovering a text,
rooted motionless day after day

on a ridge where a thing of great value flutters
I encounter frustration, neither man nor beast.

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