St. James Way

St. James Way

The first martyred body sailed to Spain from Jerusalem via the Mediterranean Sea where he spent his life spreading the Word of Jesus. Angels must have guided his boat as there was no sailor or mast to guide the boat.

A horse on the beach was the first to discover the arrival of the martyred body and, in surprise, jumped into the waters. Miraculously, the martyred rose and rescued the horse from the water, only to fall back into the sea. His body was covered by scallop shells.

Then, the horse rescued the martyred body, carrying him to an inland spot. His followers buried his body. A star emerged over his gravesite, the Santiago de Compostela.

His followers made the 900 kilometer pilgrimage in his footsteps, following the trails of shells. They began in Saint Jean Pied de Port in France, climbed the Pyrenees, walked along the country and town roads to Santiago de Compostela and to Finisterre, where the martyred body arrived by a boat.

They all witnessed the waves at the end of St. James’ road.

Buen Camino

An Empty House

An Empty House

The house has not been occupied since my father left for the city.  It is still standing,  but is now occupied by  a wild cat and his family. The gate and orange tree-lined wall remain the same.  In front of the guest house, gingko trees  greet me while the swallows fly under the roof.

My grandpa built this house in the 1920s on a solid foundation. He planted the gingko trees from the gingko my mother brought when she married my father.  These trees are  almost as old as me, 65. My father named one tree, “Poet,” when I left for the United States. I was 26. He was using this house as his summer house.

My uncles’ weddings were all conducted  in the courtyard. My father’s funeral was also held in the courtyard. Now, it is full of the same weeds as the wilderness. At the corner, a well is abandoned, but the blue sky and white clouds surround the house during the day, and stars at night.  The sight of the well brings back memories of cool showers during the hot, humid summers.

The kitchen was not just the kitchen. My aunts showered in the kitchen. My grandmother watched her daughters shower from outside the kitchen.

The back yard was filled with persimmon trees, there was a terrace where jars of kimchi were left for fermentation. On the narrow wooden veranda, I read Emily Dickinson, Herman Hesse, Leo Tolstoi, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck during my summer vacation while the song of the cuckoo drifted down from the mountain.

Now, I sit down on the wooden floor, watching the rapid train passing through my hometown, and feel guilt for neglecting the house. I am now very far from this house. I am in a foreign country. I visit once a year.

The wind opens the gate, inviting the birds to the orange and persimmon trees in the yard.  I see a snail. I envy the snail as it lives with its own home on its back as it goes about. People, in their shame, keep their houses on their hearts. It is better to get homesick.

At the Glacier Bay

Kongsvegen

20m high cliff-face at the terminus

Photo by Manuel Elviro Vidal  

At the Glacier Bay

The waters are cold and blue.
The mountains are high and steep.
The clouds hang on the waistline of the mountains.

The whales, sea lions and sea otters are the living things
on and under the waters.

The sound and sight of the glacier falling into the waters
awaken my sleepy conscience,
making the solitude so deep.

The glaciers are crying for their disappearances
from the Earth,
from the Glacier Bay in Alaska.

Poet’s Daughter

Poet’s Daughter


Poet’s daughter brought a gift of five pebbles

From her Ireland trip to her father.



It was the best gift to her inland dad

Who sees the beauty in the pebbles formed from the crashing waves on
the sea shore.



The pebbles are losing the seawater in his study,

But they will be good companions to the poet

Who comfort his sea fever.



Anyway, they are the expression of daughter’s love of her dad.

Ieodo

Ieodo

Ieodo is a underwater rock in the East China Sea which has been a disputed “territory” between China and South Korea. It is within the median line of Korea, so Korea constructed an ocean research tower in 2003 and has been operating. Half of Cheju fishermen who were fishing in the Ieodo sea did not return due to swiftly changing weather and storms. Cheju women, sea-diving women, sang a song, “Ieodo Sana, Ieodo Sana,” (Do you live in Ieodo? Do you live in Ieodo?) in the sea from their heart for centuries. Their sorrow was in their song.

By Yearn Hong Choi

The peaceful sea will never show Ieodo;

only the stormy sea will show Ieodo.

10-meter waves will expose top 5-meters of Ieodo,

a rock hidden under the waters.

Ieodo is located on the way to the distant sea

from Kapado and Marado.

Half of those who passed by Ieodo

did not return to the mother island;

only half returned to the port.

Those who could not return

drifted away to the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.

The seafarers could not communicate with tropical island people

and disappeared into the equator with the sunset.

With the sunrise

in the following morning,

they rose onto the water,

disappeared into the blue sky,

and then appeared as shining stars in the night sky.

The blue sea has the same amount of territory,

as much as the blue sky.

Ieodo was the gate to the distant sea.

Half knew it and

half did not know it.

That was the message

the classic sea was telling us.

The peaceful sea did not tell us anything,

but the stormy sea was reading to us the memorandum

of those who could not return.

No one wants to leave their hometown,

but the stormy sea forced Cheju seamen to lose their ship,

home town, and home port.

Ieodo is somewhere

in the lost sea.

Goodbye to My Uncle --at his cemetery in San Francisco

Goodbye to My Uncle

--at his cemetery in San Francisco

You have been a romanticist, never getting old even in the last moment of your life.

You have overcome a language barrier, racial and ethnic discrimination in Japan and the USA as a young boy and a mature adult.

You have been courageous in overcoming all the difficulties of life set in a poverty-stricken farm village in Korea and post-War Japan, and an affluent society in San Francisco.

In the midst of a difficult life, you always saw the beauty of life, using oil and Oriental watercolor to draw your childhood farm house, and later to draw the Bay area landscape or photographing beautiful moments.

You failed to treat your diabetes and instead drank hard liquor over the years. You travelled to Korea, Japan and the world with a never fading youth and romanticism. You had a young heart throughout your life. “How many speeding tickets did you receive, my uncle?” “Many,” you answered.

You were damn proud of the Choi family from North Choongchung Province in Korea.

In May 1968, you forced me to get off the cruise ship, American President, anchored in Yokohama, Japan which was heading to San Francisco via Honolulu and come to your house in Chiba, Japan by a taxicab. Then, you bought me a Northwest Airline ticket from Tokyo to Seattle. “You are the first Choi studying in the United States, I cannot let you sail to San Francisco. You must take a flight.”

That was the way I landed in Seattle, the USA. You then followed me. You finally established Edoya, the jewelry store that took up one entire block of downtown San Francisco. You built a fortune and took me to Reno, Nevada one weekend to find and enjoy another world of the USA. You were brave to lose big and win big in Reno. That was you.

Your wife, my aunt, answered my question, “Why did you marry my uncle?” Her answer was simple, “He is the manliest man I have ever met.”

My wife whispered to me when you entered my Virginia home for the first time,” Your uncle looks like a prominent university president.” You smiled at my wife.

You have been ambitious and hopeful. You have been a tearful man with compassion and loving care.

I will miss you forever.

San Francisco has been you, and will be so forever,

As Chiba, Japan has been you and will be so forever to me.

God bless you.

You have been my one and only uncle in the USA and will be so forever.

My uncle, Choi Hyoo Hyoung or Edward Kawana

Sea and the Nations

Sea and the Nations

The sea is one, but the nations divide and conquer it. The sea does not acknowledge national boundary lines, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), or extension of continental shelf. The sea ridicules and denies existences of such man-made divisional concepts.

Nations want to make and expand their own seas, because of the infinite resources the sea can offer. But what is the point to mandate the sea creatures to abide by these boundaries? They maintain their freedom to navigate as they please.

Nations do not yet know how to agree on how to draw the basic coastline, which is the starting point of territorial sea, contiguous sea, EEZ and Continental Shelf.

Nations have invested millions of dollars to study sea bed geology to justify their claims of continental shelf. Its geological formation was designed and shaped by Mother Nature, not by man.

My friends, we cannot draw dividing lines on the water. Water evaporates, producing clouds and rain for the living things on the land.

Sea ridicules the wisdom of humankind in the 21st century. Mother Nature, the Sea, the Earth are inseparable, but the nations do not know the triangle relationship, so precious to us.

Drawing a line on the surface of land is artificial.

Drawing a line under water is more ridiculous.

Sea, one body of the sea, is, and must be the common blue space for all of mankind, but it is polluted and destroyed by nationalism, greed, overfishing, tensions, wars and military confrontations, even after two World Wars and the Cold War over half a century, and wars since.

How ridiculous we are!

How pathetic the nations are!

Advanced technologies are destroying our sea. Nationalism is making the sea as a complex web of too many artificial lines—more ridiculous and more pathetic.

Alas! Our sea is a sorrowful, painful tragedy, the tragedy of the commons.

***This poem was delivered at the Third South China Sea Conference in Hanoi, November 2011.

Praying Hands —to Albrecht Durer





Praying Hands

—to Albrecht Durer

Yearning, suffering, hope and aspiration.

Silent language from the soul ascends to heaven:

The mother prays for her son living in a foreign land

every dawn with a bowl of fresh water from the spring.

A man's hard labor in the mines has financed his brother

who has become a success as a young artist.

The bones in every thin finger have been smashed and abused

with suffering arthritis. He cannot paint with his damaged hands.

A candle is burning next to his two hands fused in one.

A blessing descends to the darkened room lit by the candle.

A young woman dreams to swim across the ocean

inside her lover’s prayers to reach the other side of the ocean

 every morning.

Our world of blissfulness!

Cheju Island

 

Cheju Island

The front yard and the back yard are the sea from anywhere in the island.

Mt. Halla is the sky of the island wherever you are.

The sea has seduced many fishermen to Ieodo and many did not return.

The Cheju women’s tears made the sea bluer and windier.

Many more women live on the island

Who lost their husbands and sons to the Ieodo sea.

Reeds are waving flags on the melancholy coastal hill.

The sea is spreading from my front and back yards to the ocean.

Mt. Halla is always seen as the sky of the island.

In between, 370 hills lie like the Silla Kingdom’s Royal Tombs.

By Yearn Hong Choi

Flowers in the Borderland

Flowers in the Borderland

Flowers in the borderland are beautiful as

any flower in the center of the Continent,

but not many people watch the flowers in the borderland.

That is sad..

The sailors returning from the other side of the ocean

know that the borderland flowers are equally beautiful or more beautiful than

any flowers on any port of call;

No flower is more beautiful than their wives or lovers at home.

The longer their separation is,

the more tearful their reunion will be.

The more tearful their reunion is,

the more beautiful love is blossomed in a flower.

Don’t feel sad!

I am going to tell the world that

the flowers I saw on the cliffs in Portugal

are the most beautiful flowers, unforgettable.

---

A Girl washing my feet

A Girl washing my feet

I went to a foot massage parlor

after the Great Wall outside Beijing.

We were assigned to a small room.

Suddenly my privilege to travel

became my shame.

I was not a nude,

but my two feet made me a bit shameful,

when a teen-age girl came to me with a water basin.

My wife was assigned by a teen-age boy.

Our feet were washed, cleaned and massaged

by two children.

They asked once in a while in broken Korean language,

“Do you feel good?”

I could not answer: I just smiled at her.

I could not ask a question, “Are you going to school?”

Jesus once washed his disciples’ feet.

Does He ask me?

“You are fine. Don’t be ashamed of!”

To Poetry

You are the only thing left to me

after I have come a long distance

from my hometown..

Now, I am sixty-five.

I will rely on you for the rest of my life

in the time my vision is blurred and hearing is hampered

because you are a beautiful dreamer.

When I dye,

Please bury me in your ground

with all beautiful metaphors.

Outside your window

my spirit will be wildflowers in spring,

my spirit will be a green azure in summer,

my spirit will be a maple tree in autumn and

my spirit will be snow from heaven in winter.

You should light a lamp for a wayfarer in the night

who is coming from a long distance.

You are soothing and comforting the souls.

My friend!

Angel’s Words

Angel’s Words

My earthenware is more beautiful than any porcelain,

and it makes sound more beautiful than any golden instrument.

Your loving care is more than my bowl can contain;

Solitude

Solitude

When you cannot handle solitude,
walk into the woods and talk to the trees and birds.
Then, the water in the creek will carry your solitude to the sea.
I know solitude is the disease of those who live in the high altitude.
If you still cannot handle solitude,
communicate with the stars in the night sky.
Then, the most shining star which looks like the chrysanthemum,
hyacinth or the firework in the summer night’s dream
will present you one beautiful poem
no one can write.
That poem will cure your solitude.

April

April

Cherry flower petals falling down
like white butterflies
land softly and cover the green grass.
Then, real butterflies coming down from the sky
to the Earth
dance in between magnolia flowers.
It is a beautiful dance festival.
The butterflies are whispering to the flowers:
We are leading the feast.
They are questioning:
Who wrote, “April is cruel!”

March

 

March

Suddenly

cherry blossom,

yellow flower fence, and

light green woods

are making the deer family run out of the woods

to the green field where the blue sky is hung.

The nature’s revolt:

The naked trees are making Monet’s impressive art,

bright color as much as the bright sunlight

at Giverny,  France.

I see a revolution to this world.

Hummingbird

Hummingbird

---To Georgia O’Keefe

1

A tiny bird’s long beak is

penetrating into the nectar of an oasis tree’s flower

on the New Mexico Desert.

Two wings constantly are flapping

in the air to stand still.

What kind of wings are they?

One step backward from the flower

and two steps forward

in mid-air

toward the flower

(No other bird can fly backward!)

2

You are the most beautiful flower in the New Mexico Desert.

I become a hummingbird

flapping my wings 90 times per second

to be engaged in an aerial warfare

with the fragrance of the flower for one ounce of honey.

3

The 10-centimeter hummingbird

is descending 80 meters per hour.

New Mexico Desert

from the sky to the earth

is full of your fragrance

via hummingbird.

Renate Hong----Who can blame this German Woman?

Renate Hong
----Who can blame this German Woman?

A young German woman fell in love with a North Korean student at Yena University in the 1960s. Their first love overcame the national boundary line, color of skin, ethnic looks, and language differences. They married and the first son was born in a year and another pregnancy came in joy and happiness. Then, the young father had to return to North Korea. Recall from the Communist Party! They parted at the Yena Railroad Station with tears. He promised her that he would return. She did not doubt his words. However, his promise was not fulfilled in the following 48 years. In those 48 years, she wrote mountains of letters to the North Korean Government, the International Red Cross, the United Nations organizations, and South Korean president Kim Dae-jung who earned the Nobel Peace Prize to get back her husband. Finally, she received a letter of invitation from her husband in North Korea. She prepared multiple photo albums for hundreds of photos of their two sons from their childhood to adulthood. Then the despair: visa was denied from the North Korean embassy in Germany. She sent many letters again to North Korea and finally received the visa. She and her two sons were greeted by her husband and their father, and his daughter from his second marriage to a Korean woman at Pyoungyang airport. They spent three nights together. He handed a short note to her at her departure:
“I want to see you in Berlin next year!” Next year has not come yet. She does not know when next year will be.

Who can blame her fatal attraction to a North Korean student?

Who knows their love story?
All humankind should know and read their love story.
Their love story will touch all humankind.
They met when she was 21. Now, she is 71 years old.

Who drew the national boundary line?

Who invented the passport and visa?

Freedom to see her lover should be respected and admired with tears from our eyes.

Army Second Lieutenant

Army Second Lieutenant

Everlasting youth and vitality

inside the rank of army second lieutenant.

In the hot and humid summer training camp,

I was always the last cadet in the standing on the ground.

That was most unforgettable part of my college life.

While Lee Mi-ja’s Camellia blooming,

Dancer’s First Love was revived as the chorus song

in the weekend R and R session

on the darkened ground under the starry sky.

The Youngchon Officer’s School, our last schooling,

and the Second Korean Army Hqs. in Taegu City

I served the first year were surrounded by apple orchards

have provided an enormous experience to my life and poetry.

When my ears were familiar with Taegu woman’s accent

and intonation,

I had to leave the attractive woman’s city for the front line.

There I ran Euijongbu, Moonsan, Dongduchon and Pochon, and

finally crossed the 38^th parallel in one evening.

I realized that Imjin River was the river of the division and that

The moon over the demilitarized zone was the same moon

I saw when I was young.

After two years tour, I returned to my graduate school,

but I still love that young officer’s rank.

I prefer one diamond to one star,

because I see my youth and vitality forever

from that diamond.

Mother

Mother

1

The most beautiful breathing is my mother’s.

Her heartbeat is irregular,

but breathing.

That is the most comfort I could get from the night.

Breathing I hear from my mother’s bedside

is mine or hers, or both of us.

Do you know 

my mother is still alive,

next to me?

2

Rejoice in her abounding grace.

3

Mother suffered the anguish of dying,

but I only remember her love,

mother of abundant and unconditional love

always and forever.

My Country

My Country

Mountains over the mountains,

I can only hear a cuckoo’s song.

Among the layers of the mountains,

I can hear only the cuckoo’s note

in green, green, green of the home.

The distant hills look much too near.

Landscape

Landscape

Backyard became villagers’ permanent resting place.

High bell tower of a small country church

is higher now than before.

The village is blessed under warm sunshine.

Retiree’s last words

Retiree’s last words

           Yearn Hong Choi

The retired teacher sent his books to his country hometown’s library

And to his close students as Christmas gifts.

He did not know where to go next.

Packing the books was a war against dust.

Although I did not open the windows all those years,

The dust invaded my apartment, and covered my books,

Art works and furniture.

I had to fight the black dust for several days and nights.

I threw out many things to the recycle bins: my scrapbooks, papers, and even blankets.

I paid money to dispose my TV set, record player and furniture.

I could not dispose my body, so that I found a way out: a public bathhouse

To clean my dusted body and soul. But the soap could not remove all the dirt.

So I remained in the bath house for a while,

Thinking of my next destination.

When I go out, I will follow the direction of wind:

I will go to the airport to take a plane to a tropical island:

I don’t care which Island, as long as it is warm enough to not need a blanket,

And as long as it is primitive enough to see Paul Gauguin’s half-naked women.

December





December

Yearn Hong Choi

December is the gray sky, and darkened world.

We all stand in the corner of darkened world

With a melancholic sentiment.

The fallen leaves have left the street.

I can see you coming through the naked trees.

Snow will come, like a letter.

I want to go to the equator in December,

And want to forget December.

I want to forget the passing of a year in an African jungle,

Or I want to sleep in your green memories.

I want to be with those who can extend the month of December

A little longer.

So I skip the winter, and want to meet in early Spring, like a squirrel.

My friend who visits without a call is truly my friend:

He leaves wood at my fireplace.

In December, the moon rises with a genuine friendship.

You are weaving my wool jacket.

The fireplace burning wood makes my room cozy:

Water is boiling for tea in the room of a poet.

The cactus is blooming in red and white in his room.

Foggy Rain

Foggy Rain

 by Yearn Hong Choi

The trees, the birds, the doe, the man, the lake and the forest remain as hazy traces in a foggy rain on this scroll of ink painting.

That bashful first love, bleeding like ink through the Chinese paper; why does it glitter like a jewel in the winter forest?

The entire scene is indistinct, made something lovely in that all too gentle miracle