© TaeHun Yoon, 1978 then 2025

The desert rose upon the clouds,
and the sea—resigned—sank beneath them.
Even here, at the lip of the world,
the breath of a typhoon finds me.

The desert whistles—
a sound like memory
trying to unfasten itself from silence.

Somewhere, a hammer beats—slowly,
a hoarse cry behind a door
that forgot how to open.
The wind dries the earth to bone,
erasing every trace of tenderness.

A heart—only a green blade—
bends, curls,
dies beneath the heat of its own fear.

That silence—
it poured down the cliffs
like something immortal.

I am afraid of my own shadow.
If you could see within me,
you’d find a trembling rabbit
nested in the hollow of my chest.

Fear—
it is my father,
it is my mother.

Her body widened,
became a lake.
Around her,
a thousand men stood shining—
and I thought the sun had found them.

But no.
It was me.

Dust does not linger;
it walks toward the song,
toward the rock,
toward the twin fires
of sun and moon.

Now only the wind remains.
All things are afraid.

Even the wolf’s cry,
even the raven’s moan—
both have fallen silent.