Maum Machine

Our hearts pump thick, red thread,

Trailing behind us, stretching back years and years,

To a hospital room in London, in Seoul,

Weaving intricate designs through time,

Maum machines that shudder and yearn like hot animals,

Sniffing the earth for counterparts,

Pooling in places of habit and habitation,

Overlaying and merging in delicate interplays,

Laying down long lines of history to be remembered and remembered.

 

My thread, spanning continents,

Unspooling in mad bursts,

From Europe to Africa and the Americas,

Then haunting Asia, increasingly uninnocent,

Pulled onward by the seductive suction of endless novelty,

Ensnared over there and ultimately abandoned by youth and love,

I thought.

 

Your thread, all that time in its bee-dance of native home,

Catapulting itself finally across the sea,

Landing at my feet,

A fearless, smiling bundle of you,

Younger than I,

Braver than I,

Better than I,

Wondrous in your evolution.

 

But next a bout of vanity on my part,

Playing the cheap part,

Chasing some unformed fantasy then

A deep slide down,

Dark and alone until

 

A hand from above,

Your hand,

Offering nothing short of redemption, really.

 

A hand from above,

Your hand,

Offering nothing short of reincarnation, really.

 

So I reached out,

Finding the answer

And the answer bridging time, language, culture, logic, fear

Almost effortlessly.

 

And even a fool could know that this feels right,

That this life with you, without malice or reserve,

Is nothing short of epic, nothing short of miraculous,

And everything more than I possibly deserve.

 

 

———-

Korean translation key:

Maum: heart, mind, soul