‘He was the embodiment of suffering
at a time when suffering was needed.’
—KO UN, ‘Kim Dae-jung’
on the day you died i heard helicopters
& jet planes flying over seoul's old head
the sun was shining hot & burning down
teheran-ro & the steel streets of gangnam
were full of young girls holding umbrellas
by the subway entrance a young man held
the hands of an older man who was writing
something on a small pad, both looking sad
about something, although I knew it wasn't
you; & as I walked down the stairs into the
subway station I watched girls coming up
holding handbags over their behinds to
prevent the up-skirt glances & cameras
i'd recently read were on the increase . . .
i knew that you had just died & so how
could anybody here have that knowledge
but it made me sad in any case to think
about your long & amazing life & the life
of gwangju people that is so different from
that of the girl walking through gangnam
wearing a medical mask (not because of flu
but due to a recent visit to the face doctor
& it's not her fault & I don't know anything
about her life but i wonder what's the point
of all this, although i don't expect an answer
from her let alone anyone here i must find my
own reasons for life & carrying on within me
i have to stop thinking about sad things like
the photo of you and kim jong-il, hand in
hand at last, while ko un looked on; i have
to believe in some sphere of freedom where
girls can walk around wearing short skirts
& holding umbrellas to protect their bleached
faces from the harmful old sun's gamma rays,
& boys do not have to do their twenty-six
months & old women don't have to live in
basement apartments & crawl up the stairs
& no one tries to steal up-skirt glances at
anyone & tawdry old mats covered with red
peppers spread out to dry can be left in the
middle of the road;
i have to believe in this
road & the reasons for walking alone at night
& so i write & think of you in the past tense
knowing that within hours of your death your
wikipedia entry had been changed to reflect
the fact & then I knew you were really gone
& it was all beyond dispute, & your life was no
longer an article that doesn't cite its sources
but rather a song free of kidnappers & enemies
& crocodiles crying aloe-vera tears yes forget
that it doesn't matter now, you'll join roh moo-hyun
somewhere behind a waterfall & together you'll
wait for the rest of us to arrive (one by one like
days of summer filled with moving tears & hands
& sunshine