Strange—yes, quietly strange—
after the gentle praise,
after the book has gone out
like a child sent into the world,
finding its place among unknown hands,
there is no fullness waiting for me—
only a widening silence,
a thinning of what I thought was mine.

What once lived close as breath
now hovers just beyond reach—
ideas loosening their roots,
half-formed, half-fading,
like waves that speak in the night
yet never arrive at shore.

My mind grows heavy,
not only with what is lost,
but with what refuses to remain.
A quiet fear walks beside me—
unspoken, but near—
names slipping,
rooms turning unfamiliar,
days folding into one another
without address.

Toward evening
I go to the small room,
lie down beneath a low ceiling—
six feet of white stillness above me.
No horizon, no path—
only this narrow field of being.

And there—
in that smallness—
something begins.

Not by effort,
not by will,
but like a knot
loosening itself in time.

Then the lines return—
not summoned,
but given.
They flow as they wish,
a quiet stream released,
remembering its own way.

I do not hold them.
I receive them.
The words pass through me—
lighter now,
freer than before—
less mine to keep,
more mine to trust.

And I, too, begin to release.

What I clung to
falls gently away,
not lost,
but entrusted
to a greater silence—
a vastness that holds
without asking.

Under that low ceiling,
within that small room,
where nothing needs to remain,
where even loss is at rest,
I meet what does not leave.

Not memory.
Not thought.
Not even the name I have carried.

But presence.

And in that presence—
I find myself.

Not the self I feared to lose,
but the self already going ahead,
walking quietly
into that unseen country—
the place I have always known
in poem.

Will I return?
Or have I never left?

The stream still flows.
I am their dwelling,
their crossing,
their passing light.

And so I continue—
singing,
losing,
finding—

moving gently
into the place before me,
which has always
been my own.

– TaeHun Yoon, May 5, 2026 (Edited on 5/6/26)