Alice—welcome.
A face once forgotten.
God fills
long-overdue longing.

The youngest daughter,
grandsons Andrew and Joshua,
little Susie,
and a dwarf Chihuahua.

A twelve-year-old horse, skin and bone,
teeth worn down by thirty-six years,
unable to eat.
A sturdy twenty-four-year-old mare.
Six calves.

Their names can’t all be remembered.
Only twelve chickens,
one seven-month-old white cow—Lisa—
praised with such insistence
that Donald, the Buddha-faced husband,
lets a quiet smile rise.

When Melissa came to New York
and stayed a week or two,
he never complained.
Cats sprawled everywhere,
inside and out.

At the henhouse
Joshua found two eggs.

Ah—
dust so thick there’s nowhere to step,
walls and photographs
that won’t let the eyes rest.
Yet between the piled layers
flows the calm of rural life,
moving through the slow pendulum
of a clock.

On the pepper shaker at the table
clings the thickness of time,
settled habits of thrift
sunk into every corner.

Like escaping after a second urination,
measuring speed,
the small spring that supplies
dishwater and toilet water—
that is
the generous margin
that allows nine grandchildren
to be seen for two weeks.

Ah—
a season of frugality
brushed against my body all night,
then finally melted
into the shy glow
of a fifteen-candle bulb
half-hiding the guest blanket
and purple pillow.

Silently climbing to the reservoir,
checking the bathwater supply,
the husband’s quiet smile—
that was
Alice’s freedom.

Among more than thirty animals
rose a clearness.
Poverty as humility.

In every corner of the mountain home—
mold-rotted bowls,
dust-packed rooms,
ceilings layered with cobwebs,
floors double-seated with earth—
this was
a life accustomed
to returning to soil.

Mountain life.
Innocence.

—Yoon Tae-Hun, August 15, 1998