Scorched Face

Yong Wan Choi 11.08.08
(Draftsman on Sungnyemun (Namdaemun) Gate, 1961)
Wrapped in bandages over its burns
lying in a sickbed
it embraces me, who came to visit, and sobs
the pain of thirty-six years with body stolen and heart trampled
at liberation it drew its torn collar together
for more than half a century
while people busy with politics and economics looked on
the stolen history
the lost culture
the scattered souls of our forebears—
lonely Sungnyemun kept and watched over them
the gatekeeper of the six-hundred-year-old capital set its own body ablaze
and in the leaping flames
O the grief of failing to see our forebears' blood-boiling love
groping the scorched face of my beloved
to find the family's soul again.
prostrate before it, the wailing tears of Gyeongbokgung Palace