Spring

^{Seoul, May 1980}

cherry blossoms are opening.    
Pink clouds canopy the road to town,    
wind shakes out sakura rain like piggy-bank coins.    
A new school year erupts.

I walk the long road to university.    
Cherry petals confetti my neck,    
my shoulders, like feathers.    
Gathering into silken wings.

The Japanese planted cherry trees    
when they came, tossing seeds that cavity    
her womb like spent bullets.    
More sinister now than tank tracks

And wreckages. Even sudden beauty and rebirth    
a Japanese image.    
The Korean girls stolen and    
numerous as planted seeds.

Japan calls these trees Tokyo Cherry,    
says their petals represent Japanese soldiers’    
brief but beautiful lives.    
I learned so a previous spring and wondered

What other miracles and newness    
were so planted? How did Korean    
spring occur before Japan    
came with flourishing destruction.

What is a first day or university    
without washes of pink and white    
without green men glittering    
black guns and boots mapping the path?

Tall whispering grasses also planted    
to cultivate order and grow goodness and cleanness    
forever. As I enter my city I see    
one in ironed uniform

stalk-still inside a gust of blossoms.    
The string inside me catches    
as blushing petals ceremoniously collect    
on his blood-green kevlar.