Pusanweb Writing Contest 2002 - Poetry
 

Kumjeong Mountain at Daybreak
  by Kenneth Parsons

December 5, 2002

             Clouds have been gathering in the blue mountains

                                                         since long before dawn,

             Gathering like white syllables on the gray wordless page

                                                                                                  of Time.

             And now even Time itself wants to disappear

                             down the dark throat of a cedar thicket.

             Yes, like love exploited and rebuked

                                     It wants to walk right out.

             But for some unreasonable reason

                          It can’t.               Or won’t.

             Opening its eyes in the cedars’ darkness,

                                                                              unaware, neutral

                                                    to Time’s motion

                                                    a kachi lifts its head

                                                    and listens to world-in-its-own-waking,

                                                    earth time pulsing, hard-wired

                                                    behind bird skull,

                                                    and breathing on its wing.

Time, earth, cloud give themselves up

                                                                              to the cedar thicket.

Give up gushes of gold sunburst,

                                                                              drops of wet silver.

The kachi’s quick eye quivers,

                                                                              wings stretch,

                                                                              claws release limb,

Springing up and up

                                       wingblades beat,

                                                                              breaking airwaves,

Throat utters its trill –

                                                    ka, ka, ka …

                                      

carrying the mountain’s breath,

                                       carried by Time’s unencodable silences,

                                                                                           breaking, breaking

                                       into the code of the morning calm.

 

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