The Key of God
He holds an astonishing key—a key that touches
the tender love that leans toward sunset.
In a garden that measures the weight of wind,
night opens its door
so the flowers, done with their tasks, may drift away.
On afternoons when the breadth of water shrinks
under the breath of clouds,
we must spend the whole day facing only shadow
and revive the voices of flowers
swallowed by darkness.
Wherever light has vanished,
God trims the edges of sunlight
and releases them into the garden.
Rain falls near the foreheads of flowers—
the graves of those that have left the garden.
Rain gathers around the flowers,
whispering: let us flow away.
The damp breath of clouds
lifts the roots of flowers again.
God’s garden,
where one comes to know humidity
and the temperature of sunlight,
is so deep and wide
it can hold thousands of stories.
There is a wondrous key—
a key that will open
the flowers that cannot flow.
Serene Hair
Before she passed,
Mother left me
A inheritance of breathing hair.
Whenever the wind brushed through,
The strands panted, gasping for air.
Perhaps, if not for the tangled branches,
The birds would have had no home.
Since the magpie took flight from my head,
The crown of my scalp has always been serene,
Yet my hair remains forever willful, and forever wavering.
From a disheveled nest,
A well-groomed bird took wing,
And Mother, whose address has vanished,
Keeps being discovered by me, over and over.
I want to possess a fluttering that glitters red.
I want to have bare skin where sun and shade take turns to rest.
Red hair is cheerful.
When I lift the serene tresses, Mother’s fine-toothed comb rattles.
A rainbow is never serene;
It is a thing of mixing, a thing of entangling.
The streaks of rain are as orderly as Mother’s silver hair.
Hair that used to tangle in Mother’s comb—
Leaving behind that awkward habit of knotting,
My flat-back head was beautifully idle.
They say the shade where acacia sunlight spills
Is Mother’s new address.
I left her fine-toothed comb there,
The one that smells of Coty powder.
Profile
Poet Yeon Myeong-ji began her literary career in 2013 with the poetry collection 『Gashibi』, published in the Minerva Poetry Series.Her published works include the poetry collections 『Sitting Like an Apple』 and 『Where would the House of the Sorry’ be? 』 the e-poetry collection 『Seventeen Marco Polos,』 and the travel essay 『Step by Step, Walking the Camino.』
She has received the Tolstoy Literary Award, the Homi Literary Award, the Cheongsong Gaekju Literary Award, and the Aviation Literary Award. In 2025, she was awarded the Bronze Prize in Poetry at the Literature Asia Awards.
Her poems have been translated and published in local languages in India, Pakistan, Kosovo, Italy, Egypt, the United States, and Belgium,Greece,and Iraq.
