Answering Trivial Questions
One day when I was twenty-eight years old
a man calling himself a Marxist came to ask me to join a new organization.
Near the end of the meeting, after some talking, he asked:
By the way, from which university did you graduate, comrade Song?
Smiling,I answered, high school was the end of my education.
I graduated from juvenile detention and have been a labourer ever since.
At that I saw a cold fishy film cover his eyeballs,
a moment earlier so passionate.
Flustered, he said:
You should feel honored to be together
with the national liberation front.
Sorry, but I have decided not to accept that honor.
Today, ten or so years later,
a group of people are asking again
what organization I am part of
and I answer again without hiding:
I am registered in that field,
I am driven by the sea’s waves,
every day I sway in front of flower petals,
I am coloured by the green trees,
I am instigated by the wind,
I lean on the fallen walls of the have-nots,
I am a part of kicked stalls and beheaded shoes,
of the words of so many people
still not born crawling like amoebas, I answer,
I am taught by the river.
silent after carving so many ripples in itself.
[The 1st Asian Literature Festival 2017]
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