Touching the Verb
Ask me what I’m holding
들다 is the verb I might use
But my mother says
들다 she means lift
As in
The trees lift their great arms
to pull the wind in closer
A group of trees gathers
every apple-shaped prayer we toss up
The tree is about my height
That is
the height I would be
if I were a tree
if I were a tree rooted to live
My mother held me
because she knew the ground
and I had to be kept at a distance
When I hold a purse
a poem or a person
I shake out the inside
This weather holds me
for a moment then it passes
The tree hat dips in the wind pours
its head into mine
Chestnut drops from above
some thoughts are not mine to think
I think the name for a group of trees
is something I could never know
들다 sometimes lets you go
to enter to penetrate
to permeate to saturate
This is how the leaves turn
단풍이 들다 curiously
the leaves are the subject
The leaves look at me
Blood brightens their faces
What they hold is their own
emptiness which burning might fill
The leaves hold
At moon’s urging
night’s blade draws each tree
out of its skin
The leaves hold that fury until
they have no need
for hands anymore until wind
steals their hands away
Trees what are you
trying to tell me how
are you trying to hold me
The tree holds once
Then the season of surrenderz
Bridget Huh is a queer Korean poet completing her undergraduate studies at Concordia University. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in or are forthcoming in Arc Poetry Magazine, PRISM International, The Ex-Puritan and Canthius.
