WHEN A BRANCH CROSSES OVER THE WALL – Poetry, by Jung Kut-byo

WHEN A BRANCH CROSSES OVER THE WALL

When a drooping willow branch crossed over the wall, it may not have been her work alone. If the distant root, whose face she hadn’t seen even once, and the flowers and leaves–who had put their flesh together and washed their hands of each other, hadn’t supported her as one body, the branch would have just shivered forever alone. Without the persistent rain that had fallen for five long days, without the unruly snow storm that had brought them closer together, crossing over the wall, wouldn’t have been as exciting for the branch. Without the forbidden wall that had made the branch hesitant, and shut off the outside world, the drooping willow branch would not have been able to dream, about going over the wall, crossing over the wall’s body and climbing over the crown of the wall’s head. So when a magnolia’s branch or a persimmon’s branch, or a rose vine or an ivy, any branch for that matter, crosses over the wall, the wall was a gamble as well as a guide to enlightenment, pulling them out of obscurity.

(Jung Kut-byol)