© TaeHun Yoon

The soil, once pressed underfoot,
rose softly—
becoming cloud.

The air turned to the scent of sweat,
and the sky above my head
flamed upward,
devouring
both heaven and the field.

If one, by chance,
could lift a single stone—
any stone at all—
beneath it,
one might find
the law of dryness,
the truth that clings
like dust to silence.

On the hill,
a pair of straw sandals—
the wanderer’s shadow.
From the bound hands
bloomed a fragile freedom;
from the mouth sealed with stone
came a song of silence.

In the snow,
only skulls lay scattered
beneath a burning sun.

I thought—
perhaps God
was but a snare
for the grieving soul.

Yet the roots of the earth
descended
to where weeping dwells,
and drank of it,
and from that sorrow
grew again.

1997, then 2025