Hae.mi, with the mood for loving kindness
I fall upon thee, as the last violin concerto
From some former life, which I cannot name
I copy the Korean scripture, as if it was known to me
Hae.mi, there is no life worth living, but the one
Not thine, not mine, but something else
Reminded from a child’s face, I linger there for long
Unable to remember the rapture then, of living
Of knowing with any certainty, anything
I am trapped between seasons aware of my own mortality
With a holy assembly of symbols, copied by time imperfectly
There’s no original art to this loneliness, only a kind of death
No God but a scattered Universe of galaxies, points of light
That tremble faster than I can move, Hae.mi, that’s it
You have surrounded me like water, like air, like perfume
And I am left with nothing but the memory of own imagination
That softly whispers without reply, in darkness, in the night
Where we cannot sleep and cannot name that thing between
The hours that are not tame, so sleek and pearly like the rain
Hae.mi, I’m lost to oracles and harmonics of melodic Korean
Without choice fruit, but the power to love in my own way.