“Our Neighborhood”

(In memory of Busan and Masan, 1979 – for late Rev. Sung-Muk Choi and late Esq. Kwang-Il Kim)

We walked together, side by side,
bound by one small, silent care.
Before us stretched the chalk-white road—
so still, as if time waited there.

The world was lost, and wandered far,
and still it wanders on.
Some voice said, “He who drinks too deep
shall wake to find love gone—
his heart misshaped, his soul laid bare,
his breath a weary curse.”

O poor, forgotten, severed head—
you rolled beyond the hearse.

I still remember the book-scented lane,
Bosudong, where words were bread.
Rev. Sung-Muk Choi’s hands held dreams
of truth the world once fled.
And Kwang-Il Kim, with eyes of flame,
stacked hope upon each shelf—
believing minds could free the bound,
and faith could find itself.

Beyond the gate, the wasteland spread—
no grass, no bloom, no sound.
Only gravel, only ash,
and pillars beating the ground.

The air hung heavy, thick with grief,
the stench of a dog long dead.
And still the thread of this frail world
trembled—barely fed.

Leave this place. The wind is wrong.
It whispers, “Do not stay.”
Yet in my chest, the heart recalls
the light of one lost day.

– Author’s Note

This poem was born from the memories of Busan and Masan in 1979.
The air of that year was heavy and dark,
and in every street, anger and fear walked together.
Yet even in that shadowed time,
there were men who held on to books, faith, and the dignity of being human.

In the narrow alley of old bookstores in Bosudong,
late Rev. Sung-Muk Choi and late Esq. Kang-Il Kim founded
the Yang-Seo Cooperative.
They were not merely sellers of books—
they were prophets of thought,
souls awake in an age that chose silence.

The white road in this poem,
the one we once walked together,
cannot remain only in the past.
It continues within me still—
like the faint light of a lost day,
a small flame that stirs us to rise again.

Under the Busan sky,
where the scent of old paper mingled with rain,
I learned how beautiful and fragile the human conscience can be.
That is why I wrote this poem—
to remember that faith,
and to keep the road open for those who still believe.