Five Poems from: Things Learned on a Summer Hill

When I Was a Moon Child

I was sitting face to face with time. It's a bundle of colorful yarn. It's      my job to pick one of the strands and unravel it.Today I picked up a particularly long strand of yarn. Even when I      unraveled it all day long, there was no end to it. So many knots,      my hands hurt, Grandpa. My grandpa, who briefly glanced this      way, advised me to be cautious always.Grandpa was splitting something. Baby, I need to make this smaller.      I have to hide it somewhere very deep. What is the deep place?      Baby, it's just around the corner. In every moment that passes by.      It was dazzlingly bright, but not visible to the naked eye.The yarn was like a river. The winding path looked gorgeous. It      should look good, Baby, if it can't be torn down, it's not the world.      The length of each yarn was different, but the total amount of      light and darkness was the same in any bundle.Imagine pulling a brick out of a riverbank. When a large flood is      coming from afar. I often imagined saying, "I am sorry and it

      was my mistake." When I washed my scratched and torn hands      in the moonlight, inscrutable tears flowed down

and after tying it off for the day, I played on the swing. Looking      down from there on the ground, I could see a person just taking      baby steps towards the darkness.

Ghost of the Headwall

Summer was preoccupied with repeating the ruins.

For several days, I hadn't eaten well, I just looked at my old dog      looking at a distant mountain.

So eager to live differently,I left the house with my old dog in my arms.

I've seen it in a book      "A Prayer to Go to Heaven with the Donkeys"²      A house with fluttering lights

The belief that I could reach it gave me a path.      At the end of the path there was a house full of light

A much more dazzling house than I imagined.      We ran at the drop of a hat and saw the sign posted at the      entrance:      Give up what you love most.      Only one person is admitted.

      Even my old dog was looking at it.      Someone had to be left behind.

At best, it's just a sleep turned inside out.      Even the sleep is surrounded by swords.      While kicking a rock,

not being able to reach it; the despair also gave me a path.      We came back in front of the wall.

For a second I wished you were dead.      Petting my old dog,

I painted a window full of light on a white wall.      I promised myself that I would never go to heaven again if I had      to lose you there.

In the Afternoon

When he left home      he saw him off at the door.      Always watch your step.      Think of the heart of a bird carrying straws to build a house.

      After sending him off, he comes in,      sits in a chair and looks out the window.      So dreary, it might snow at any moment.

Am I waiting for snow?      Maybe, he thought.      When he thinks of a person who has to go far, worry is the first      comer,

but he is born in winter, it might be better, he thinks.Lovely is the scenery of a person born in winter walking into winter.

He walks neither slow nor fast,and the snow is falling and falling.      Even the chair seems to swallow him little by little.      Some afternoons never end, never.

      The winter is long and he feels desolate, being alone.      He feels how it must feel like to be the last man.      I feel like my life is over, while looking around,the two muttering eyes turn into walnuts.

In a dream, he holds a hammerand comes to break up his eyes. [End...