Modern Hanbok (A poem)

I'd like to know what a modern hanbok would look like

Not the formal kind worn at weddings

Not the kind that float down a catwalk

The kind an everyday woman would wear

If she were going shopping

If she were going to work

If she were playing with her children

It would have to be machine washable, because there are busy women

It would have to be comfortable, because these are modern women

Maybe it wouldn't need a slip

But it would definitely have to work with sneakers --

After all, this is the twenty-first century

And these women would have had all this time

Evolving their fashions to their tastes

They were never told what they could wear, and what they couldn't,

Under pain of beating or punishment or death

They had agency

They lived in a world that flowed with the currents of their times

And more than once altered those currents themselves

They remembered their halmunis laughing about the pictures they saw of other women,

From other places,

Wearing a hanbok but getting the bow all wrong

Sometimes it's the details

Sometimes it's the attitude

Because there were sometimes when those other women

Got it just right

And they were wearing the clothes

Not the other way around

Just as they -- we -- live in a world in which they lived with their history

And beyond it

Not that they lived for their history

As if they themselves were an offering to it

Sometimes the colors are vibrant

Sometimes the materials are subdued

Always, it is a garment that suits their lives

Not a costume to suit a role

This is, after all, a modern hanbok for a woman in a country that has always known agency

Dreams, Daylight, and Rooms (Poem)

I used to have a golden dream

I retreated to for relief,

For belief

Once -- maybe twice --

I saw stars in a darkened sky

I used to believe in things like dreams, and stars,

And skies

Perhaps I've traded 

Promises of the night

For the fragile realities of daytime?

The green of leaves

The explosion of flowers

The sturdiness of living wood,

The harbingers of the living world

There is glory in these,

No doubt

And having been in greying rooms

That were just here, just now

Which required dreams to live through

I am grateful for fragility,

No doubt

But shouldn't a life

-- Real and full --

Have day and night,

Dreams, stars, and sunlight?

Perhaps -- perhaps

I need a different dream

Before I can open my eyes

In this other darkened room

A two-dimensional river (Poem)

On the dock by the river

A pattern of criss cross

As good as two dimensions

Are going to get

The current pushed aside

By another force

Is this not

What real life looks like?

Bordered by rocks and lily pads

Stagnant batches in the middle

Lost in the details

Of the side show --

Wishing for "smooth" 

-- Whatever that means --

Then wondering why it seems

To push by 

Too fast

On occasion, a wonder --

A funnel, a swirl, a vortex --

Captivating to contemplate,

A window into the third dimension

-- But ultimately,

Only one direction,

And that is down

A reminder to master the flow of the two

Before we try to plumb

The mysteries of the third

Wishing at sea (Poem)

Sitting by the breezy sea

Unlike most wishes,

This one comes true

Is that, perhaps,

Why we love the sea?

We know what it can give us

And what it can do

And we know that,

In its own way,

It makes everything else

A little better

Is it the taste and smell of salt?

On the most humid of days

Does it feel a little less heavy

Because instead of moisture

We feel salt giving us a hug?

Is it the sounds?

Waves against rocks or stones

Birds protesting

The escape of food?

We know we are not alone

Or at least

We can believe it

Is it the sight of everything mundane

Suddenly become majestic?

The grey of water

Is now sunlit silver

The blue of sky

Reflecting back a little bit

Of its own glory

The whiteness of clouds

A little fuller

Now that they

Are closer to their home

Skyline meets sea-line on the horizon

Perhaps everything is coming home to itself

This wish,

Unlike most,

Comes true at sea

Awakening (Poem)

Awakening with time

In time

Trying on for size

The responsibilities of the day,

The days that make up

Lives

Holding onto sleep, the comfort

Of simply existing

Without the need to prove

Value or meaning

Enjoying contentment

There is nothing to wake up for

Enthusiasm for the day,

The future

Is replaced by satisfaction

With the present

But sunlight can be treachery

Just as are the memories and torments

Of the dark

And contentment

Is always fleeting

We do not rise for enthusiasm

We rise for hope

That we can construct our lives

Day by day

Not with what we must do

But what we have chosen to do

Contentment is fleeting

As is sunlight

As are memories, good and bad

Good and sad

And as is the day

But the things we do

The things we choose

The days -- 

The life -- 

We construct

Are the things that endure

A Meditation at Boston's Long Wharf (Poem)

sunlight on ripples and waves

undulating like a snake

expanding, receding, becoming, being

waves on waves

lighting the path on water

 

I *might* have read a collection of Li Po's poetry very recently. 

In all seriousness, this has not been a great few days for me, and when I feel that way, the best thing I can do is go for a long walk -- in the case of the walk this morning, one that went past the three-hour mark. I covered a lot of ground -- did I mention that Boston isn't very large? -- but at the two hour mark I needed a break, and Long Wharf was the perfect spot. The sound of waves lapping against the stone wall inspired me to meditate, and it was the peace I needed. 

But the sunlight on the water, which my phone did an okay job of capturing, was what made the respite so peaceful, and what inspired the above poem.

If only I could be there every morning!