Tag Archives: fiction

“Over the two screws*”

I used not to ask anything. All my life, I did the work myself. Do it alone — never ask — that was my rule. And yet, there I was again on the bathroom floor, learning that nothing about making … Continue reading

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“Absent Labor, I Fade Away”

Time movesin its quiet circles, and I move within it— a small figurein the workshop of days, one pair of aging handsamong the countless handsthat have built this world. Absent labor,I fade away. Not yet into death, but into somethingalmost … Continue reading

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“SWIM AS JUBILEE” II

(1) Swim— O my soul, swim. Do not turn backwardinto the dim coves of memory,where yesterday keeps its broken boatsand old voices call us by nameswe have already outgrown. Swim. Swim as Jubilee. Swim toward the widening horizon,toward the place … Continue reading

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“True Music”

— With a Heart Longing for Peace I stand upon the shore. The sea roars. The wind moves. The moon waits. The sun gives. All of them draw one another through the quiet conversation of the universe. Far beneath, the … Continue reading

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“Gwangjang Market”

This morning we hurried beneath Seoul, riding the subway toward Gwangjang Market, and before the market itself revealed its thousand faces, a nine-month-old girl riding in her stroller offered us the first greeting of the day. Her mother beside her, … Continue reading

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“Over Cheongpung Lake”

The water remembers. Not only water, but roads that no longer lead anywhere, a stone step before a vanished door, a mulberry tree reaching toward a field that now sleeps beneath the lake. Names once spoken at dusk rest quietly … Continue reading

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“Cricket on My Window”

Who are you, little voyager of the green world? Out of the roaring highway you came, out of the bright rush of June, out of the invisible fields and grasses beyond the guardrails, crossing the torrent of speed without hesitation. … Continue reading

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“Ascending Namsan”

At last, I climbed Namsan. For the first time. All my life I had longed for this mountain. And Namsan welcomed me as though it had been waiting for ages beyond counting, through millions of years of stone and sky. … Continue reading

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“Half a Century Later”

Time does not pass. It settles quietly like dust upon an old hymnal, like sunlight resting on photographs whose faces still wait in a fading frame. And after fifty years— or perhaps only yesterday— five friends gathered again by the … Continue reading

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“The Ranger Platoon of Love”

I sing the red-capped Master Sergeant, chief instructor of the Rangers on Gamaksan, whose voice once rolled through the mountains like thunder among the pines, whose boots struck the ridges and taught young men how to climb fear, how to … Continue reading

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