Reminiscing

July 8, 2018

Toronto, I Feel Like I Belong

When I first came to the United States I 1970,

I felt like I was in a foreign land

With so much blonde hair and so many blue eyes.

I went back to Korea in 1979,

During medical school, for four years.

In Korea, I was one of them, in a throng of

Black-haired people in the downtown of

Kwangju, South Korea.

Yet, in my heart, I was not the same person

As I was when I left at age twelve.

I was a twenty-two-year-old

Immersed in American culture.

For the past ten years, I had felt like an American.

Indeed, I was an American, I just looked Korean.

While I lived in the United States,

I just wanted to belong to a group

Or have friends who looked and thought as I did.

However, while I was living in America

For ten years, I did not realize that I was

Transforming into an American girl.

The Western clothes I bought and wore;

The food I ate, such as hamburgers and fries;

The language of English I spoke;

The American Caucasian friends I played with;

All these daily living, cultural changes

Gradually seeped into my being,

Helping me feel like a part of this land.

Nonetheless, when I looked in the mirror,

I was still not an American.

Whenever I went grocery shopping or to movies,

I always appeared as being different. Some days,

I wanted to have red hair and green eyes

To be similar to everyone else.

Everyone had big noses and eyes.

That was America—and most of the immigrants

Were mainly from European countries.

But I was Asian, and I always stood out

Until I went to Toronto, Canada.

How were so many Asians living in Canada?

Young Asian girls have transformed into North Americans

With long, beautiful black hair, wearing miniskirts

Or summer shorts with tank tops.

I was walking with my Caucasian husband, Tom,

Holding hands and laughing on Bay or Yonge Street.

As I looked around at my surroundings,

I felt like I belonged to this city.

Tom and I are like the majority of people

Who proudly march through this gorgeous city.

These Canadians have accepted

The Asian race as their core citizens.

In 1970, I came to the United States.

After forty-eight years of living in North America,

I felt like I finally found the place where I belong:

Toronto, Canada

April 7, 2019

Hidden Lake Garden

An orchestra of finches and woodpeckers

Are tweeting and rapping on evergreens,

Conifers, and blue spruces,

Welcoming us back this spring.

Tom and I are marching over hills of

Paved asphalt, focused on our strides,

As bushy-tailed squirrels scurry across

The bare limbs of white birch trees.

Brown trunks also stand side by side

Over dry, fallen maple and poplar.

Collapsed logs lay across the beds,

Supporting shades of green moss.

Junipers stretch their arms to shake our hands,

Those are held while shuffling down each steep slope.

We’re glad we’re not on the bikes

Those often pass, mounting speed down the valley.

The white sun is glowing behind the clouds,

Peeking through dense, overhanging branches,

Packed, naked trees stand tall, but they beckon my coat

As pachysandras sporadically warm their feet.

Each hilltop reveals the hidden lake

Where our children chased white swans

And fed pinches of bread to fish gathering at the bank.

The fall colors surrounding the water

Are now replaced by packs of coffee-bronze trees.

Towards our homestretch,

Hosta gardens burgeoned baby-green

Stems next to a small pond

Where a duck leaves its rippling wake.