The sun turned its face away,
and what fell—drop by drop—upon my feet
were the tears of a thousand stars.
Only hollow eyes shimmered in the dark,
and I struck the fading sun
with fists that could no longer burn.

Inside me, something trembled—
the door creaked open,
and I stood there,
a bankrupt soul,
holding the silence of two worlds.

If pride still existed,
it meant nothing—
not to the drunkard,
not to the liar,
not to the one who leaves.

You became a hill of stones and thistles,
a mound of forgotten bones—
and I,
a shadow walking west,
carrying the ache of home
that never left my chest.

© TaeHun Yoon, 1980

• Note: (after leaving my homeland) This poem was born from the ache of leaving my homeland, Korea, and crossing the vast distance to America. It carries the silence that lingers between loss and beginning—between what must be left behind and what cannot be forgotten. The “sun” here is both my country and my youth, turning away as I depart. The “tears of stars” are memories—each drop a fragment of the people, places, and dreams I could not take with me. To emigrate is to become a “bankrupt soul,” emptied yet somehow still alive, walking westward toward an uncertain promise. Through this poem, I grieve not only for what I lost but also for the part of myself that remains forever Korean—rooted in the soil I can no longer touch.