© TaeHun Yoon, 1978

If you look from the right, his face is hard—
twisted with something mean and small.
But turn to the left, and sorrow shows,
the kind that’s forgotten what peace is called.

The earth keeps what it knows best—
hunger, thirst, and death beneath.
And so we pray with trembling breath,
“Let us walk this ground in peace.”

But the ground is never still for long;
it splits beneath the surest feet.
You are the quake, the breaking song,
your grief the fault, your pulse the beat.

We, the hungry, gather grain
from fields already stripped and dry.
Men and women, children, rain—
all wander where the furrows lie.

Don’t run too far; we’ll meet again,
when dusk leans low across the plain.
In sackcloth rough, with ashes spread,
we’ll lift our eyes and bow our heads.

This world’s one tree, from root to crown,
already hollowed through and down.
And every thought we called our own—
was crooked wood, from birth full-grown.