Viviparous
Fair Lawn, NJ
2024, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
birth
I spread my eyes across my mother’s land. she breathes and so rises the sapphire waves
caressing the chestnut soil – imprints on her holy land; she prays
for the greed of her sons and daughters will one day cut her wrist and hang her throat
by the very ocean she weeped for
breath
Protect my sacred body, she tells me. for the sake of the future children who will live and frolic
only in the gray, putrid rivers with floating pollock to play with
their hands will only touch the scars of my native trees, not the real pine barks and trunks
their noses only breathing the cigarette and factory-filled monochrome air
look at the blurred stars tell me, will you let the metal men touch your home?
heart
No mama,
i will nurture our mountains and sky to be so vigorous with life and protected by lives
that one day, this land will not ever be dictated by industrialized businessmen who only care about the
emerald in the dollar bills, never the fern which feathers the woods
i promise that our children will always be able to breathe air free of metal and dust
that their lungs will no longer have to suffer and coughs will not plague the playgrounds
that they’ll never have to worry about their brother being sick with cancer from acid rain
i swear your veins of tree roots will never be cut for the sake of a gas station
life
I was born from you, Mother Earth
my legacy will live for you
Reflection
My work was inspired by my memories of my home country, South Korea. Ever since the urbanization of Korea, the pollution levels have skyrocketed. Certain lines in my poem were a direct reference to my memories of Korea, like being scared of acid rain and the suffocating air that forced me to stay home. Compared to the mountainous areas or the times before factories, my country has been polluted by manufactories and gray buildings that leave no room for the beauty of nature. Seeing children and the elderly I know suffer from increased asthma caused me to bring awareness to the need for control in urbanization in my poem. To have a lively country, Korea’s natural life takes a toll. Using my small, but necessary influence, I hope to reverse this issue so that gray clouds will no longer blur my future memories.