Tulis Time

The channel flaps like a tent
now that the whale has crossed.
White water bundling up; paduk stones
tumbling, tumbling down.
The sea skylark soars: silver drops its
flight;
vigilant half the day
to claw, to scavenge red flesh.
A shell, azalea hued, takes the sun
in a seaweed smelling rock crevice,
while a sea swallow on wing slide
glides in a plate-glass sky.
Sea - see right, right down.
Sea
green as bamboo leaves.
Spring.
What does it look like?
Little hills, lines of flower bud lanterns lit?
What does it look like?
Thick thickets of pine and bamboo?
What does it look like?
A crouching tiger
draped in a blanket.
spotted yellow and black?
And you, my friend, take some such scene,
a white
smoke like
sea,
and voyage far, far away.

by: Chong Chiyong
(Korean Literature)