A Winter Kiss

Like a woman expecting her
lover’s returning

I wait for spring in my warm
fur collar.

Walking down the frozen asphalt
in brisk short steps

I hurry home to make hot tea.

First he’ll place a kiss on my
wintering lips

Then we’ll cuddle in the dim of
candlelight.

In the long short night of the
lover’s returning

In the long short night of the
winter’s solstice

I wait for spring in my warm
down covering.

By Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

Forgiving at Summer’s End

Ever since you left
I’ve been learning
how to let you go,

like we let the summer go,
fall, winter, spring go―

Then summer will return
like rivers return to the sea―

Azaleas will blossom in symphonies
of pink, the nightingale will call
from a weeping cherry
in the midnight garden again—

But don’t let go of yourself,
for we need to be there
when life returns

in dawn glow
in forsythia yellow

to surprise us again in the beauty
of forgiving at summer’s end―

By Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

(Above poem has been published in Poetry Pacific
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2019/)

Ode to the Oak

In the season under the sun
you didn’t need me to tell you

how glorious you looked in your
voluptuous green, in golden crown.

Now, in another kind of the season
that seems to have arrived all too
soon, your bird nest empty,

you stand ever tall in your
naked stance, albeit gently slanted

as if Buddha has turned into an oak.

With no bark to spare for petty regrets
over your twisted limbs, scarred tissues,
punctured wounds, yet

determined to shelter a family of
young raccoons wintering
in your nook,

you’re standing ever bold and bare
in winter’s stare.

By Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

("Ode to the oak" and other poems)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANk-qcDrXz0

https://youtu.be/6k3PMTFwV38

A Thousand Magnolias

Palms gathered onto my chest
I listen to the whisper in my heart.

When I was a baby Mama held me
onto her bosom.

When I was a child Papa carried me
on piggyback rides.

Now grown into a life of my own
in a place too far to turn back in time

I’m cradling a thousand magnolias
never sent.

By Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

Scent of Beauty

A young golden Retriever walks in the park
trailing a long leash —

As he wanders into a smoky aroma of the
autumn foliage, upon seeing a young squirrel

tiara’d under her sensuous tail twirling madly
up a honey locust in her flight from the

rustling shadow of the Retriever,

he draws himself into a hushed halt, ears
pricking, golden tail hanging aloft, and gazes

upon the little squirrel with his smoky eyes,

as if he just ran into the loveliest creature in
his whole-wide world.

Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

Time in Monsoon Rain
(River of Time)

Time rushes by like a river rushing
down in monsoon rain.

In time we’ve come, round about
one-half the globe, mending

torn-away buttons and worn-out hems
of once our fashion-inspired robes.

Treading the path untrodden in the past,
in love falling, out of love tumbling, 

healing the wounds and remembering
to forget, here we’ve come with stories to tell,

but time rushes on like a river rushing
down in monsoon rain.

Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2014

Katrina’s Child

You came with your hair down, pounding down,
tearing down the Gulf of Mexico in your savage
ecstasy, Katrina.

When morning came without dawn, some hung
onto the bridge like scarecrows, some onto higher
ground, into the shops of the French Quarter.

Zooming onto the TV screen is a little boy tiptoeing
to a scanty grocery shelf who plucks down two
bottles of Coca-Cola and a loaf of Wonder Bread.

Dimples dipping to a smile he plops his catch
into a pale plastic bag and pirouettes to the broken
door, when a reporter in his crisp white shirt

turns his black microphone in his way and asks,
albeit gently, if he knows he’s looting.

The question unfamiliar to his ear, the boy peers
into his plastic bag looking for an answer,
into sea-blue eyes of the reporter, only to freeze
before a tall black eye of the camera peering …

The answer dawns onto his delicate brow, tear rising
into plum-dark eyes like Lake Ponchartrain breaking
into levees, tearing down the innocence of your child,
Katrina.

Therese Young Kim
New York, NY
Copyright © 2015

© Therese Young Kim

Photo Credit: Nadine Matthews