In the valley soaked in love—
from beneath its arms,
rose the scent of human sweat.

Even death itself was, in truth,
a fragment drifting through the sky,
a sip of wine,
a single sigh,
the sweet lips of a woman—
a bridal procession.

Turn your head.
Look back.
The one who has changed… is you.

The birds fly toward the western sky.
[He comes. I go.
He comes. I go.
He comes. I go.]

Now go—before the sun rises.
From afar,
the cry of a cow
echoed like a ghost of memory.

I am water.
Once, I tried to ride the clouds.
Stones. Shards of flint.
A few crooked trees.
Through the cracks of the steep cliff,
a single pine stretched sideways.
Upon a jutting rock,
two crows crouched in silence.

People climbed the cliff.
A dog with black fur
and red spots on its coat
appeared suddenly, tongue lolling.

At that moment,
the gorge turned into a graveyard—
trees stood thick
like headstones.

Ride the black horse
into the desert of heaven.
The scent it carries,
the saddle it bears—
that is the horse I must ride.

The setting sun
seemed to sink into blood.
A hawk beat its wings violently,
searching for its own flesh
beneath the trees—
and then,
it returned into itself.

Everything longs to belong.
Countless faces—
when one vanishes,
another comes
to caress the empty place.

The golden tomb waits
to give birth
to the child of the sun.

Grave, grave, grave…

In the valley soaked in love—
from beneath its arms,
rose the scent of human sweat.

Even death itself was, in truth,
a fragment drifting through the sky,
a sip of wine,
a single sigh,
the sweet lips of a woman—
a bridal procession.

– Note:

This poem was born in 1980, amid the confusion and inner turmoil that followed my arrival in America.
At that time, I stood between two worlds—
one, the homeland I had already left behind,
and the other, a foreign land that had yet to accept me.

“Flowing Water” is a record of that sense of disconnection and longing,
and of the “human instinct to belong.”
The images of rivers and valleys, rocks and beasts, and wedding rituals
symbolize the crossings between life and death, love and loss, homeland and estrangement.

Through this poem, I wished to say that immigration is not merely
a movement across space,
but a dismantling and rebirth of the soul.

The water flows on,
yet within it remain the scent and memory of its source.
Like that water, I too have flowed—
and even now, I am still flowing.

© TaeHun Yoon, 1981