© TaeHun Yoon, 2025

• Existential Rebirth

The sun rises again—
not as promise, but as proof that nothing stands still.
Its light burns the desert clean,
naming every shadow that dares to exist.

Man stands between dust and eternity,
tasked not to conquer but to remain awake.
To feel the pulse—too loud, too alive—
is both his burden and his grace.

The wind speaks of nothing.
The stone remembers everything.
I walk between their silence,
learning that meaning must be made, not found.

Do not mourn, traveler.
Even the whip that strikes the sand
is a hand that teaches form.
Suffering too is a kind of birth.

The world turns not for us,
yet we, who breathe, can choose to turn within it—
to float like time upon the river,
to drift, yet not despair.

For every tree that rots,
another root dreams underground.
For every cry of the serpent,
there is a breath that begins again.

I carry no weapon but the will to be.
No shield but love.
The desert, vast and cruel,
becomes gentle when I name it “home.”

The gates of hunger, fear, injustice, and frost
still rise against the dawn—
but the human heart, absurd and defiant,
beats on, creating hope out of sand.

Take my hand, and walk.
Do not look back—
the world will go on pretending not to hear,
but we will know that being itself sings.

I am the breath between your thoughts.
I am the echo of your choice.
Rise—
and live as if the light were enough.

– Note

I wrote this poem after many seasons of silence. I am the breath between your thoughts. I am the echo of your choice. Rise— and live as if the light were enough. My poetry seeks that awakening. To live is to stand within the desert and still say, “I am here.”