Do you understand—
that it is not enough?

Not only until death—
but beyond the drumbeat,
will you walk with me?

It was the song of the lepers,
the cry of beasts gone mad.
Within the city’s diseased gut
lay plague,
and bodies unburied,
and silence thick as ash.

All things in this world
are bound by time.
And time ripens everything—
grief, rage, and mercy alike.

I ask for nothing but time.

Dusk began to fall.
“Open the gate for us.”
Without adornment,
night covered the earth.

This place was far from any home—
no footsteps,
no barking dogs,
only the breath of dust.

My friends,
I invite you to the battlefield—
to that thin border
between heaven and humankind.

And after that—
to the whole world!

He knew
the bridge behind him was already burned.
There was no way back.

Then came the sound of footsteps—
not following,
but leading.

The ground sank beneath his feet.
Before him raged a dark-blue sea.

Except for one small boat,
painted red,
the horizon was barren.

That small boat
sailed bravely.

Its sail swelled,
tight—
ready to burst.

That—
that is my heart.
It was my heart.

© TaeHun Yoon, 1979

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Author’s Note

This poem was written in the autumn of 1979, when the air in Korea trembled with unrest. The streets of Busan and Masan echoed with the cries of citizens who could no longer bear the weight of silence. President Park’s regime had grown cold and unyielding, and the people’s longing for justice had begun to stir like a storm beneath the surface.

Footsteps is not a chronicle of events, but a dream—one that walks ahead of us, not behind. The burning bridge, the diseased city, the red boat on the dark sea… these are not metaphors alone. They are memories, visions, and warnings. They are the voices of those who sang even as they were cast out, the lepers of history whose songs still linger in the wind.

I did not write Footsteps to accuse, but to awaken. The sound of marching is not always the sound of war—it can be the rhythm of hope, of irreversible commitment to truth. The small boat sailing into the unknown is my heart, and perhaps yours too. It carries no weapons, only the wind of longing and the sail of conviction.

If you hear the footsteps, may you walk forward. If you see the sea, may you cross it. And if your heart swells like a sail, may it not burst—but carry you toward the temple of peace.