Finding a Mate

Finding a Mate
Yong Wan Choi 02.20.12

Where under heaven, in hills and fields, is the ground where I stand
when, among days that pass in flocks, is my love
the throngs of life flow on, pairing off, throng with throng

When the season ripens and the sap rises
yesterday waits for tomorrow and greets today
where passing things find their place and stop, new shoots sprout

In one moment when fluttering lonelinesses overlap
the joy of meeting among the strangers coming and going
as if one star in the boundless night sky were mine

A dream of rapture, joined for a time, ripens in the heart
afraid the narrow single path might sway perilously
two hearts of one mind, bickering, grow alike

With the anguish of striving to go together to the end
parted, groping the empty air of a vacant place
at last shuddering, the old dream held to the breast

As each year the wildflowers of hills and fields sing of spring
is life a road of meeting, leaving something behind, and departing
the inevitable, mysterious harmony of holding on to one another