for Choi Sung Hee
i remember jeju-do: that living eye,
a candy-coloured sky that was remote-
controlled by halla-san, or lord muck,
a lady mountain gathering her skirts
around her as a cloud sucks up rain.
i remember 제주 4·3 사건, although we
were not there, bullets like a maze,
weeping in secluded lanes, wounds as
big as tangerines & the green moulds
all over the dead (the reds, the red
i remember gangjeong peace zone, cute
as a postcard, & its anti-nuke murals
(white wall with that painted-on tree
whose outline mirrored that of a real
tree (its leaves greener than my hopes
i remember kang dong kyun, the mayor,
was arrested for protesting too much -
and for eating too little in his cell,
his hunger strike embarrassing some,
while electrifying the people's media
i remember "Touch not one flower, not
one stone!", a great mantra for daily
living, just like mayor kang's letters,
each beginning with the line: dear
mr. noam chomsky! dear mr. chomsky!
i remember seogwipo, quiet six pm city
on the island's south side, the flowers
in boxes lining the steep path down to
the marina, & the harbour, & the wooden
restaurant where the mosquitoes ate us
i remember u-do, tiny postage stamp of
an island, where the haenyo plied their
trade, sleek as seals in black diving
suits, surfacing with buckets full of
sea anemones & sea's salt-water tears
but i forgot you, funny dol hareubang,
like manwha characters playing dead,
frozen into stone on the mountainside.
there'll be no memorial service for you
who can't remember, let alone regret.
