by Sang H. Kim
The Brush
Mountains and valleys,
Rocks and streams,
Birch and pine,
Birds and sky,
Short and long twigs,
Strong and soft winds,
Straight and twisted rivers,
Are perfect neighbors.
They are the strokes of life.
Without them, we are a stranger
On a lone desert
Painting an empty canvas.
No stroke, no sky.
Birch and pine,
Birds and sky,
Short and long twigs,
Strong and soft winds,
Straight and twisted rivers,
Are perfect neighbors.
They are the strokes of life.
Without them, we are a stranger
On a lone desert
Painting an empty canvas.
No stroke, no sky.
When I was a teenager, my father used to pile up junk in the backyard. They were tons of copper wires, giant wooden wheels, a house- sized pile of electric poles, and strange looking giant plastic dishes. I asked him what they were for and he replied that they were left over from his work. I wanted a place to play, so I asked him to clean them up, but he told me to wait. So I waited more than ten years.
In the 1960s, there was serious economic and political turmoil in Korea. We didn’t have fuel in the winter to heat our house. When his five boys were sleepless in the cold, my father went out with an ax in the middle of the night and chopped the electric poles to make a fire.
Then, one day my father got in a serious motorcycle accident. My mother didn’t have money, so she sold some of the copper wire. There was a great boom in heavy industry in the country so we got more than enough money to pay my father’s hospital bills. Later on, the strange looking plastic dishes were exchanged for college tuition for my brothers and I. The five of us are pretty well educated thanks to the dishes.
Now, my father has passed away, leaving the junk in the deepest corner of my memories. I dearly cherish that junk along with memories of my disciplinarian father who created treasure out of junk for his sons. Until they were gone, I never realized their value.
