[Afternoon Poem] Snowman―Witch Diary 4/Kang Soon

When you take time piece by piece and taste sadness, there comes a moment when sadness tastes sadness. Then the snowman bares his cheekbones and laughs. After the age of ten, the snowman lies in a small room, melting little by little. Caring people close the door and click their tongues. Mother places a cold towel on her forehead, exhausted and collapsing, and the snowman, whose freezing point is unknown, continues to melt. After the age of thirteen, the eyebrows melt, the hair melts, the nose crumbles, and each time, the snowman rides a rattling bus to the hospital. The snowman with a hurting heart wraps his heart with melting hands, and mother cries and prays for him not to melt. The snowman, whose belly is full of tears, laughs again, showing red cheeks and dimples. At fourteen, youngest child, I will move you to the forest where kind spirits live. Heart, do not melt. After that, melting little by little, at twenty-two, the snowman who has melted completely crosses the river of tears and becomes an owl in the forest over there. Only the heart lives, trembling as it remembers the snowman’s genes. It became a friend of the cries met in the forest of sadness. Every night, it appears in this city and pecks at fingernail crumbs. Mother, I did not die. Pain is not a shame.

■ To summarize dryly, the "snowman" is a metaphor for someone who, after the age of ten, lies in a "small room" and "melts little by little" until the age of twenty-two when they "cross the river of tears." In other words, the "snowman" is a person who lived and died in "pain." And the "snowman" has now "become a friend of the cries" and "appears every night in this city, pecking at fingernail crumbs." It is somewhat eerie. But is it appropriate to call such a "snowman" a "witch"? As the poet wrote, "pain is not a shame." To ignore, push away, despise, and finally point fingers calling someone a "witch" for suffering even after death?that is the real "shame." ? Poet Chaesangwoo

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