Easily Written Poem

Easily Written Poem

—after seeing documentary film, secret underground train to Seoul

 

By Yearn Hong Choi 

 

The leftists did not know how dangerous it was when wecrossed the Tuman River to arrive at the Manchurian sideof China. We did not know how dangerous it was to escape the spies of North Korea and China in Manchuria until we crossed the border of China and Mongolia.

 

Many were killed on the barbed wire. We took a long underground soul train from there to the Southeast Asian jungle and sought political asylum. We did not know how to distinguish the leftists from the rightists. We just risked our lives for minimum food and minimum freedom.

 

The leftist regimes donated astronomical amounts of money to the dictator in North Korea under the name of nationalism and humanitarian aides. However, they did not see the North Korean refugees. They did not hear the screams of those who shot at the borders.

 

They did not know the existence of the soul train that went through a long tunnel underground. They were careless of the dictator’s firing of long- and short-range missiles toward the East Sea and the Pacific Ocean and underground testing of nuclear bombs.

 

They just believed in nationalism and reconciliation between the two Koreas.

They did not ask who we were. They were careless about how many of us were killed in North Korea, in the River, and in the border of China and Mongolia. They just shout that they are the nationalists.

 

How pathetic! How ridiculous! They don’t see that the dictator is a naked emperor.

Mother and Dove

Mother and Dove

 

The dove which mother embroidered as a schoolgirl

Pecking for food by my side ever since

I was old enough to observe my surroundings.

Even when the War destroyed everything,

The dove survived

And pecked for peace in my childhood days.

The dove is given to the expatriate son.

The dove flew over the Pacific,

Pecking mother’s love in this coastal city

Enclosed by the Atlantic.

Mother is over 70 years old.

Although the son cannot hide his gray hair,

The dove is still flying in a very peaceful past

Of the mother and the son.

Leaving mother’s hands

Flying in her warmth

To my side,

The dove is praying for the son’s peace.

Mother, my mother.

Dove, my dove.