Easily written poem [Emily Jungmin Yoon]
reviewing a poem in the frame of the LA wildfires
Easily written poem after Yun Dong-ju by Emily Jungmin Yoon From the floor of my room in a foreign land. Morning breaks open with newspapers, each one with terrible promises of deportation and imprisonment and murder of my friend, a poet, then another, until they are all gone. I ran out into streets though it was not enough. I screamed out in horror though it was not enough. The sun began to sink faster, pouring dark over our hair, and I was scared. Still I was selfish— I found blessed time to write a line lush with songbirds, meteors, and bees, tuck my notebook under my arm and saunter here, and there, and here. Meanwhile, bombs, drones, and other winged creatures vanished from our sight and into the living, where we won't find them. We continue to hum and eat because we can. We sigh and we write and we read things like this: a harmless male bee without stingers is called a drone; it cannot sting to save its own life. I lie down. This is the floor. In a foreign land. This is the vanishing line. This country, here, there, here. Silly girl. Silly, silly girl for thinking that writing line after line of beastly beatitudes will help her. How silly, how silly, silly, silly, silly. (pg. 59, A Cruelty Special to Our Species)
Los Angeles, California is currently wracked by unmanageable wildfires. the mercilessly dry Santa Ana winds have blown tiny sparks into acres of disproportion. there are three, or four, or more, crawling across the hills above central LA, where i sit, warm and stable, reading poetry. i am masked, a thin wash of black material twisted around my ears, as if to mimic that of a firefighter. i smell the smog gently coating my sky in a morbidly beautiful orange haze.
Still I was selfish— / I found blessed time to write
i am warm and stable here in central LA. the fires will never reach me and my poetry. i anxiously check the news every half hour and the smoke and ashes and blistering flames in every photo jacket over my intact body.
so i write, though the pencil is selfishly light and the pages are selfishly soft and the words are selfishly easy and my throat is choked, selfishly, not with smoke.
We continue to hum and eat because we can. because i have selfishly clean hands to hold bread.
i am sorry and heavy with guilt, but i, selfishly, have but my pencil and my voice.
the LA wildfires are terrifying. tens of thousands of people have been evacuated and displaced. the city is receiving support from other cities and states. i am grateful to the brave people fighting these fires, and thinking of the people who are losing so much.