Within the ice—
clear as judgment,
unforgiving as truth—
I stand uncovered before You,

clothed in garments
not woven by my own hands,
borrowed glories
that fall away
in the light of Your seeing.

The tongues I once forgot
return now as witness—
fragments of a lost covenant,
echoes of a Word
I could not keep.

And their returning
is not gentle.

They descend like fire
into the inward parts,
dividing memory from desire,
until the naked soul
knows itself laid bare
before its Maker.

This is the ache—
not of loss alone,
but of being known.

For whenever I turn outward,
I find no refuge:
the world closes like a scroll,
and I am reduced to ash
before the breath of Your presence.

Yet even in the ice,
where time seems sealed,
the season turns by Your hidden will.

Wandering returns
as confession.
Exile bends
toward home.

And when the voice begins—
that solitary, burning truth—
it is not I who speak,
but something in me
summoned to answer.

Then the naked self trembles,
not from cold,
but from revelation:

to see as I am seen,
to know as I am known.

And in that knowing,
the wound opens—
not unto death,
but unto grace.

For what is laid bare
is not cast away,
but gathered—
offered
as a living sacrifice
into the mercy
that endures beyond fire.

—TaeHun Yoon, Autumn, 1971