The Knife on the Cutting Board

The Knife on the Cutting Board
Yong Wan Choi

In the days when we fought with stones and wooden sticks
to bring home grain from the fields and beasts from the hills
a baby's cry kept the meals coming
and the knife on the cutting board was a mother's joy

Living lives
went into hungry bellies
rainwater turned to sweat and soaked the soil

On the hill where the scent of pine once spread
high-rises crowd in thick
a town lit bright even at night
and between heaven and earth
only mothers and children fill the place

While the baby dreams, asleep at the nipple,
outside the door, the screams of fighting
inside the room, the moans of rapture
and at every meal, the sound of the knife dancing on the board

Though all the weapons that snatched our food away
vanish in fireworks smoke at the naked edge of the earth,
in a mother's eyes brimming with tears
the blade on the cutting board flashes from dawn