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.

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves


Low sun angle, shorter days and cool nights
Slow chlorophyll production, which made leaves green

As green fades,
Yellow, orange, red and brown colors show thorough
An orchestra of colors

The tree eventually cuts the ties between branch and leaf

Then, heavy rain and wind can strip leaves from trees,
Cutting the display short and
Covering my trails in the woods

Winter is nearby and first snow is ready to fall

By Yearn Hong Choi

Girl with Umbrella



Girl with Umbrella

Waiting for a bus at the bus stop,
a beautiful girl with an umbrella came to me and
shared her umbrella with me.
Could you imagine a man dancing under the rain
in the street with such a beautiful girl?

I returned to my home country after thirty-some years of foreign life,
and visited my old teacher at the end of the street
in that autumn morning in Seoul.
The rain was making me nostalgic and melancholic.
I did not care whether my thoughts were getting wet.

Suddenly, I was standing under a rainbow arch,
but the girl with the umbrella did not read what was on my mind.
She did not know the waterfalls upon my thoughts.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, the bus took us to Shinchon Metro Station,
and we were heading to our separate destinations.

She looked at me, then head bent, bowed to me.
She waved and backed away.
I smiled at her. I was standing there for a while.
She did not know what was on my mind;
She did not see the rainbow in the autumn morning
and the waterfalls.
She passed by me in little curtsy motions.

She became a young, beautiful woman;
Ever since then she became my home country.

The Arizona Desert

 

 

 

The Arizona Desert

even at high noon

i cannot face this barren field:

the sun, which cremated the dead

and left only white bones,

is still bright as the Inca's

there a crow spreads his wings--

his wings really black

and his beak really red

cactus endured a long dry year

with scarce summer showers;

birds and chipmunks build their homes inside

indians make jellies

from the cautus flowers

and God happily lays out a silver mine

under this cactus field

In the New Mexico Desert

 

 

 

 

In the New Mexico Desert

a big shadow of two wings

on my way

proves

there are living things

on this empty land

yes, a strange river may flow

on the horizon

and

an indian village may be there

fortunately,

evening comes very slowly

and

light from a far village

comforts me

like a star's

now real thick darkness creeps

into the desert

but the sky is still blue

as in the sea

God draws a line

where the sky is meeting the desert,

as a carpenter

i wonder whether he is an indian

The Kiss

 

 

 

The Kiss

By Yearn Hong Choi

 

The first love led to the first kiss.

Or the first kiss led to the first love.

I don’t know.

No one taught me how to kiss.

But I naturally kissed a young beautiful woman

After so many love letters.

Inside the kisses, I discovered the deepest valley under the sea.

We fell on the comfortable softness in the valley.

I never wanted to get out of the wonderful valley bed.

 Tender  F

               A

                L

                 L

                   I

                     N

                       G

Into the bottom of the sea.

 

The first kiss opens a new universe  to young lovers,

Giving off a mystic soft, nostalgic glow.  Always.