15) Fall Semester

       Wolran Kim

 

I chose the subject, fallen leaves

Even though I read about the sequel of flowers

I never knew why they must fall

 

The fallen season, holding the wind, is more dazzling

Than the full blooming season

Because the fallen season knows the end of its fate

 

“The world never goes my way”

Says a girl, swallowing a handful of pills, like M&M’s

In a hospital room, her stomach is washed out

In a mother’s eyes, the fallen season is falling

 

Even after memorizing all the falling things in one breath

The roots still hide under the deep soil

Holding all the correct answers

 

A Professor who speaks Hebrew fluently

Testifies to the tragedy of fallen leaves as if they were the Holocaust

The leaves are swimming in the air to cross the winter river

 

Under the tree that never retired, even after old age

People are burning all the dead leaves

They are having sacrificial rites toward the silent sky

 

The season cries under shoes

All the dead lush lives, rubbing our ways

The sky-trees turn red in the old campus

 

Over the life of a young girl with baby fingers

Her life seems like a dry twig

Flowers fall, even though no one knows when they bloomed