Half a Century Mute

Song of a Half-Mute Half Century
Yong Wan Choi
Half mute
half deaf

Was anything ever whole for us?
Not three times three years but more than half a century
a milky film over our eyes
not American
not Korean
though the sky has no fences

morning on this side, evening on that
sandwiched in between
what did we live on?
a corner of the marketplace where everyone lives mixed together
a household set up in a makeshift hut
busily getting by with hand signs and gestures
each day a life barely saved

grandma and grandpa's Korean dialect
the high-pitched American voices of the growing second generation

the anguished mountain pass of the diaspora
weeping and laughing, Arirang arariyo