Song for the Korean War Soldiers

Song for the Korean War Soldiers

 

Who knows the small country still divided

along the 155 miles of demilitarized zone

where deer and wild animals are killed

when they step on landlines?

 

Who knows the small country still divided

where no one can exchange letters to

his parents and brothers in the North?

Who said, blood is thicker than water?

 

/Who knows the small country still divided

still under the terror of war?

The North armed with more nuclear weapons

are testing long range missile./

 

Who knows the small country still divided?

Only migratory birds are flying the sky

over the barbed wires of demilitarized zone.

Where is the post office? Where is the mailman?

 

/Only the old men and women in their 70s remember

The War in 1950-1953 in their tender 10 years old age.

The young only know the War from the history book.

Is it really the forgotten war? It should not be./

 

Who knows the South's democracy and prosperity

On the ruins of devastated war?

Do you know the miracle of The South?

Freedom is not free. Freedom is not really free.

 

We are grateful to your sacrifice.

Every morning we dedicate flowers to your tombstone.

Every morning we dedicate flowers to your memorial service.

We are grateful to your sacrifice for a faraway country.

 

By Yearn Hong Choi

 

Requiem --at the Korean War Memorial

Requiem

--at the Korean War Memorial

 

You saved our country from the three-year war.

You saved our 30 million lives from the Communist  peril.

We shall never forget you for what you did,

The most beautiful sacrifice and dedication.

 

You sacrificed your precious life for a country,

A faraway, poor, and small country, from your homeland.

We shall never forget you for what you did,

The most beautiful sacrifice and dedication.

 

Freedom is not free. Freedom is not free.

Freedom is due to your brave youth and courage.

We shall never forget you what you did,

The most beautiful sacrifice and dedication.

 

Amazing miracle. Amazing to see our country’s dynamics!

On freedom and democracy, the nation is progressing on.

All due to your beautiful sacrifice and dedication.

We shall never forget you for what you did, the final human victory.

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