Like a feather released from the hand,
we depart—

And we say
that leaving and returning
are not two doors
but one,
swinging toward each other.

We call it loss.
Perhaps it is a feast
where long-separated sorrows
sit down together again.

Yet we stand at the threshold,
and in judgment
must send you away.

When you come,
there is a low murmur
like a brook running through a field—
delicately,
your name spoken in joy.

Gather everyone.
Feed everyone.

Soon we shall not see you
seated upon the hill of Gethsemane,
nor hear your footsteps
along the shore of Galilee.

So we send you—
not only with tears
but with song;
what more could be laid
upon such light shoulders?

You go beyond us,
and we remain;
your thought burns like a candle,
drawing days of tears—
the place where breath ceased,
the sigh you once inhabited,

left as a vessel
holding the sky of Golgotha.

A handful of ashes
pressed upon the forehead.

We do not know.
Because we do not know, we fear.
Unable to fathom the depth,
our insides tremble;
sleepless thoughts
take root in the night.

So we turn to one another.
We speak.
We speak again.
Stacking words like firewood
until the flame takes hold.

And when it rises—

that loss and heartbreak becoming one,
that whirling ascent—

is not the breath between our ordinary days
another kind of rising?

The sound goes forth—
over ridges and fields,
through towns and valleys—
a low, enduring resonance
the hills repeat
long after we fall silent.

Thus Jesus sets out
on the road of resurrection.

A single feather
riding the wind,
entering
by leaving.

— TaeHun Yoon, 2/27/2026