——At Plitvice Lakes

Up the mountain light rushes.
So am I, following its dark future.

Over what floods back
place a plank and trek on.

It’s a lake that makes one feel right
at home among travelers.
Their time branching off mine, never
parallel.

Forgive me—when mourned
too long, the mountain replaces
life, as beliefs do life, and I
the ferry ride from which any
of us, though perhaps not me, bears
eyewitness—for putting this
into words.

Forgive the green of the greenest
settling in the shallows.
How my only pair of sneakers is soaked
through and must be replaced.
This is the lake where I choose to atone
no more.

The whole of it seconds: I’m through, through
and through.
Now it bemoans no one so.

 

 

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Suphil Lee Park (¼öÇÊ ¸® ¹Ú / 秀筆 李 朴) is the author of Present Tense Complex (Conduit), winner of the Marystina Santiestevan Prize, and a poetry chapbook, Still Life (Factory Hollow), winner of the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. She’s also the translator of If You Live to One Hundred, You Might as Well Be Happy by Rhee Kun Hoo (Union Square). www.suphil-lee-park.com

 

 

 

Photo by Arthur Hinton on Unsplash