The farthest distance is not across the ocean’s blue hush,
nor over mountains that lift their backs to heaven,
but between the mind and the heart—
between the clean edge of thought
and the deep well where longing begins.
To stand in that unmeasured space,
feeling its quiet pull—
already, it is grace.

In the forest, where the world moves without witness,
grass dreams in its roots,
trees speak in rings,
and insects trace secret paths
known only to the earth.
A fallen tree softens back into soil,
entering the dark the way a prayer returns to God.
That, too, is grace.

Life begins in a hidden chamber—
seed and egg meet,
a spark leaps like a star being born,
and a silent festival rises
as if the universe were drawing breath.
That, too, is grace.

Long ago, plague carried infants away,
their small bodies lifted in straw-woven pouches
and hung from branches
so birds could peck at the sickness—
a strange rite, half sorrow, half hope.
Yet the next child arrived
bearing the pulse of the lost.
Survival itself—grace.

Before the fever of death,
a father gave all he had for penicillin,
laying every coin at the feet of life.
And the child lived.
Grace.

At Changcheon Elementary,
beneath the frozen skin of the Han River,
a boy sank into the dark.
He plunged in after him,
and the river released us both.
Grace.

At Gyeongseo Middle School,
a fall beneath the iron bar
nearly scattered the soul—
yet breath returned,
like a forgotten promise kept.
Grace.

In his youth,
teaching Sunday school,
serving summer days,
learning the slow, ancient patterns of the church—
a seed of calling stirred.
Grace.

After passing the exam for college,
poetry opened a door inward,
philosophy opened a door outward.
Together they formed a compass.
Grace.

In seminary,
his application the first submitted,
his tenor voice rising in the choir,
his poems and paintings hung like offerings.
Sensing the tremor of change,
he stepped into the urban mission.
Grace.

In the military,
near the quiet breath of the DMZ,
he built a small church from the ground
and served as chaplain two and a half years.
Grace.

God placed in his life
a lifelong companion—
her heart bound to his
like two threads chosen from eternity.
Grace upon grace.

In Seoul, he taught the story of ancient Israel,
studied with seekers at the YMCA,
taught philosophy in Busan—
a lantern passed from hand to hand.
Grace.

Then the Pacific opened,
and he crossed into another world
to learn again.
Grace.

Forty years of ministry followed—
moving among many cultures and races,
sharing wounds, offering hope,
walking with those who wandered.
Grace.

Retirement arrived softly,
like a final stanza that still opens outward.
Grace.

To grow into maturity,
to guard harmony,
to return to awareness,
to write again,
to listen to the mind’s unfolding—
this, too, is a thread of grace.

All these strands stretched through time—
humble, shimmering,
woven without sound—
come together in the quiet.
And in their meeting,
he sees what has always been:
grace.

© TaeHun Yoon