Scorched Sungnyemun

Scorched Face
Yong Wan Choi 11.08.08
(Draftsman of Sungnyemun, 1961)

Wrapped in a screen to hide its burns
lying on a sickbed
it embraces me when I visit, and sobs

The pain of 36 years, body seized and spirit trampled
at liberation it had pulled 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 ancestors
were guarded and tended by lonely Sungnyemun

The gatekeeper of the six-hundred-year-old capital set its own body ablaze
and in the roaring flames
oh, the grief of not seeing the footsteps of our ancestors, their blood boiling

Groping over the scorched face of the beloved
to find the family's souls again
Gyeongbokgung Palace lies prostrate before it, weeping and wailing