미국 월스트리트저널이 이번 소치 올림픽을 끝으로 은퇴하는 '피겨여왕' 김연아에게 바치는 헌정시를 공개했다.
월스트리트저널은 한국시간으로 24일 미국의 유명시인 쾀 도우스이 폐막식에 맞춰 기고한 '폐막식, 유나, 예의를 차리지 않은 은메달'이라는 헌정시를 게재했다.
특히 프롤로그와 4개의 연, 에필로그로 구성된 이 시의 마지막 4번째 연은 '김연아를 위해'(for Yuna Kim)이라는 부제를 달아 은퇴하는 피겨여왕에 헌정했다.
이 시에서 시인 쾀 도우스는 김연아를 '퀸'으로 칭하며 김연아의 여왕다운 품격과 인내심을 찬양하고, 그녀가 선수생활을 마치고 평범하게 돌아오는 모습을 감동적으로 그려냈다.
김연아 헌정시를 본 네티즌들은 도우스의 시를 번역해 온라인과 SNS에 알리며 떠나는 피겨여왕을 아쉬워하고 있다.
"김연아 헌정시, 국내언론은 뭐하냐?", "김연아 헌정시, 여왕의 품격에 맞는 헌정시다", "김연아 헌정시, 전세계 팬들이 그녀를 그리워할 것이다' 등 반응을 보이고 있다.
<김연아 헌정시 전문>
FLIGHT
Prologue
And in the end,
for all the tears
the scandals
the national pride,
the canned narratives,
the myth of glory
all that remains
for this witness
is the poetry
of bodies risking
everything in them
to defy the yanking
pull of gravity?
the atrophy, the decay,
the sheer inevitability
of our deaths?and in this
defiance is the lasting
thing?the games, the holy
games of our splendid hubris.
1
Below them, their insect bodies
etched into the sky?
limbs, tentacles, and the graceful
lean forward?
from here they are doing nothing
short of the miracle
of flight, and we, too, rejoice in this
safe and miraculous
landing in the dust of snow?the cowbells
welcome them home.
2
There is no need
for the whisper
of slow motion
to teach us the fluid
kinesis of these
swooping
speed skaters,
balancing the world
on the thin edge
of a blade, one stroke
at a time, in constant
torque,
turning gravity
into a play thing?
this is purified speed.
3
When a woman collapses
on the unwelcome bed of snow,
her body broken by the last
painful dig and pull
across the shifting dust,
you know she has died
to everything else in her
but the will to cross
that stain of red to the anthem
of the clanging crowd.
4
for Yuna Kim
And when she said softly,
that she was happy now
that it was over, this
when she had lost the gold,
and the bedlam around
her told her she was cheated,
I believed her, believed
her relief, her sense that
the weight of it all
was now gone, that the queen
unburdened of the stone
around her to tutor
her body through pain
and to carry the flame
of envy, anger, awe and fear
inside her, stoking it
for years and years
as a flame?that this was
over now, and all she felt
was relief, gladness, and peace?
when she said, I am happy,
it is over, I believed her.
And she, skateless,
mortal, grounded, she walked,
stuttering and ordinary,
away from the arena.
Epilogue
Closing ceremony
There is a boat,
there is a harlequin
there are children
there is the contraption
of our vanity?
the mechanicals
have arrived
and we cheer
the flying boat?
the ritual and pomp
the presidents
and prime ministers
with the cost of blood
in their heads,
the officials
dispensing weed
to calm our nerves
and the vanquished
and triumphant,
the significant
and insignificant,
the strings, the oboes,
the flutes, and the wash
of alarums from the horns;
we land, we land, we land.