Q and A in the Woods

in one summer morning,

i was standing 

on the bridge over a small stream

to see the water.

a young boy approached me,

asking me how many fish were in the water.

“Well, I did not count the fish, but about ten.”

Then, he started counting,

“one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!”

“You are right. There are ten fish.”

That was the way my day began and

I was happy with a young boy greeting an old Asian man.

There was no racial discrimination between an old man and

a young American boy in the woods.

I started to count the fish, but they were moving constantly

upstream.

--Yearn Hong Choi

 

Seattle

 

---Honeymoon Haiku

 

 

One full week in poetry reading

and poetry-dance ensemble, every evening

The brunch at the Market Place, and

Seafood dinner at the sea-side restaurant 

Made the best honeymoon

To the bride who loved poetry and dance.

He was a poet.

She was a dancer.

Seattle was his first port of call

On the way to Indiana University in 1968

From Korea as a penniless foreign student.

-- Yearn Hong Choi

Auguste Rodin's The Kiss

I look into your photo once a day.

At least once a day.

Someday, I look it ten times.

You gave me this album, small yet a most precious gift.

in it you are in front of Rodin's sculpture,

the Kiss in the National Gallery of Arts.

Even though all our letters and photos stored in my computer may be erased.

I will still have this small album, pictures you have collected in your first Virginia trip, 

in which the one photo that makes me so happy.

I can breathe when I see you in that breath-taking photo once a day.