– Longing for Home

Those shoes rest by the threshold,
their soles worn thin on mountain stones—
they whisper of the roads I’ve walked,
of lonely journeys, of youth and its heavy dreams.

A quiet house,
its door still open.
Wind drifts across the yard,
calling my name—
“Come home, now rest.”

My heart widens in silence,
like a field after the snow has melted.
The law that binds all living souls
asks me now—
“Where will you go?”

Someday, this land will awaken,
breathing beneath my feet.
A crimson sun will rise again,
coloring the dawn sky—
and in that light, I shall stand.

One path walks with reason,
another holds the hand of grace.
I have known the hunger of poverty,
and tasted the emptiness of wealth.

When I clapped my hands and cried out,
the echo answered—“Death.”
Its voice was cold, yet gentle;
within it lay mercy,
a gift wrapped in despair.

Now a red sail rises,
drifting upon green waves—
my heart begins to tremble again,
like trees in the monsoon rain.

At the edge of the old hanok floor, I waited—
amid silence and longing,
and the solitude of passing years.

I cast away the iron key,
curled like a snail within its shell,
and turned toward my homeland—
from east to west,
from light into shadow, and yet, to light again.

The soul broke its vessel and rose,
like water bursting from a frozen pine.
Ask me not what I carry—
this sorrow is not mine alone.

I can no longer write it down,
nor do I wish to.
You are dust,
and so am I.

Outside, the wind was stirring,
sweeping across the naked fields—
as if the earth itself remembered,
breathing a quiet prayer
for home.

• Hanok floor is, hardwood floor, the Malu of Traditional Korean house.

– Note:

This poem was born from a quiet longing—a remembrance of paths once walked, of homes entered and left behind. It weaves between solitude and belonging, between what is lost and what still breathes beneath the surface of memory. The voice that speaks here is not only my own; it is the voice of those who have traveled far, seeking a homeland both within and beyond themselves.

Each image—a pair of worn shoes, a rising wind, a key thrown away—carries the weight of transformation. The poem listens to silence, to the questions that follow us through every threshold of life and death. In the end, it whispers the truth we share: that all travelers are bound by dust, and by the hope that still rises from it.

© TaeHun Yoon, 2025