A hidden Valentine of the twentieth century—
its root descends
into a winter day of the third century,
February fourteen,
where Saint Valentine of Rome
fell in silence,
refusing the machinery of war,
binding men instead
to love,
to marriage,
to fragile households of hope.

Time does not move forward.
It circles.
It descends.
It waits.

September 13, 1980—
across the narrow waters of the Korea Strait,
Kim Dae-jung returned,
and stood before the tribunal of fear.
The sentence: death.
The echo: history holding its breath.

November 9, 1967—
Dongbaekrim.
A courtroom heavy with accusation.
Jeong Ha-ryong, Yun I-sang, and four others—
their names suspended
between life and extinction.
December 3rd:
life imprisonment,
a postponement of silence.

History does not lose meaning.
It only waits
to be spoken by tomorrow.

“What then,”
asks Jeong Ha-ryong,
“must we do—
for the future?”

From the potato stones of Gangwon,
through Gyeonggi and Seoul,
to Paris—
through interrogation, exile,
and the echoing corridors of Europe—
the Legion of Honor
rests lightly upon his shoulders,
as though apology itself
has learned to bow.

And afterward,
stepping into the quiet hallway of time,
he draws light—
sketching the twentieth century
in trembling lines,
where suffering becomes witness,
and witness becomes prayer.

Today,
Kim Dae-jung,
Jeong Ha-ryong—
their lives are soil,
dark, broken, fertile.
We stand upon them
without knowing
the depth beneath our feet.

On the Korean Peninsula,
a sacred current flows—
from Sindansu,
through Hongshan,
through blood, text, field, and stone.
Politics and scholarship collide.
Commerce and leadership strain uphill.
Contradictions carve valleys
deep enough
to hide entire generations.

Yet still,
the river insists.

Toward a united Korea,
a rational and moral turning—
reconciliation
moving like irreversible water
from Manchuria’s plains
to Hallabong’s crest,
until even the earth
learns the grammar of peace.

Here—
now—
in this small pause of history,
the hidden truth breathes:
the intertwined roots
of Kim Dae-jung
and Jeong Ha-ryong.

Not memory,
but seed.

Not past,
but promise.

— TaeHun Yoon, February 14, 2026