[Afternoon Poem] A Grateful Heart / Hwang In-chan

Thank you, everyone, it is thanks to your help that I have safely completed my mission. There were difficult times and joyful moments, but I think I will never forget any of them.

Thank you very much.

The long, long life has come to an end.

I have returned to my hometown, greeting familiar and unfamiliar faces, sharing greetings with beloved relatives, and having dinner together.

Recalling things like the pig falling into the well last summer.

From now on, I will live like that.

Sometimes, I will miss that place.

The colony with endless waterfalls of falling stars and good neighbors, calculating the curved paths of light bent by gravity,

Those I will never meet again,

Beloved, unknown new warriors,

Thank you for everything.

I am now back at my hometown house, meeting relatives and lying in my nostalgic childhood room.

There is no familiar face left.

They are all dead, all distant relatives.

However, I express my deepest gratitude for the care and kindness you have shown me.

Thank you, so much that

I have nothing more to say.

■ Reading this poem, I suddenly had this thought. Although it is somewhat distant from the poem itself, if I were to die and return to my hometown, what would I say to those who came to pay their respects? Death belongs to others. And others are those who cannot speak. But if I become such an other, if I cannot convey my words at all, what would I say nonetheless? I cannot even dare to imagine. It must be the extreme of ethics. So, I even think this poem might be a kind of black humor. - Poet Chaesangwoo

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