I tried to write a poem back on April 22. I didn’t really finish it, but I decided to put it here as-is.
(Poem #8 on new numbering scheme)
Sons and Daughters The ephemerality of the world is just a stone wall. There are blossoms on the trees along Gangseon-no. The suburban pavement exhales. The air reeks of density, of garbage of sand of springtime of buses. There are little square patterns of bricks paving the sidewalk. I see a discarded umbrella, broken, its ribs jutting among some weeds. My students exist in a dream. I have a couple hundred children, my alternately charming or obstinate sons and daughters who then each disappear after a year or two. My sons and daughters almost never say good-bye. One day they are in class with me. One day they are not. No beginning. No ceremony. A month. A year. An infinite specificity lies behind this mystery.