Christal
Cooper
Copyright granted by White Pine Press
Wild Apple by HeeDuk Ra
Celebrating The Insect
The month of June is when the
Muju Firefly Festival is celebrated in South Korea. The purpose of the Festival is to honor and
celebrate South Korea’s local ecosystem.
Muju is the only place in South Korea where fireflies are found, and the
people of Muju use the insects’ annual appearance as an excuse to celebrate.
In much the same way, South
Korean native HeeDuk Ra uses South Korea’s insect system to celebrate life,
culture, and poetry in her new poetry collection Wild Apple, published by White
Pine Press, September 2015, in its Korean Voices Series, Volume 21.
Wild Apple is translated into
the English language by married translation team Daniel Parker and YoungShil
Ji.
Ra’s other poetry collections
are To
the Root, What Was Said Stained the Leaves, It’s Not That Far From Here,
What
It Means To Grow Dark, and A Disappeared Palm.
Ra has also written a
collection of essays, A
Water Bucket Filled By Half, and a volume of literary criticism, Where Does the Purple Come From?
The writing of “Wild Apple” was based
upon a mystical experience HeeDuk Ra experienced during a trip to New Mexico,
where she suddenly found herself in the same landscape she had dreamed about
earlier. She compared the overall experience
to a dry tree regaining its life by absorbing water through its roots.
U.S. Route I-64 Rio Grande Gage Bridge near Taos, New Mexico. Attributed to Daniel Schwen on 06-25-2010. CCSA3.0
Mixed media painting by Christal Rice Cooper
The spirits pick a wild apple from a tree and
give it to the speaker of the poem to eat.
This apple has provided sustenance for birds, swarming ants, and finally
humanity. In this poem there is a
oneness of nature and the spiritual world – every living thing is being used
for the way it is intended granting a freedom to all creation, both in life and
in death.
String of chili peppers and bleached white cow's skull hang in a market place in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Attributed to Andrew Dunn. CCBYSA2.0
I brushed the ants away and took a
bite
wild apple sweet sour bitter
at the horizon the spirits
disappeared
I saw myself standing behind my back
I listened to only the wind
took a bite of their wild apple.
In “Forest Memory” the bees
act as an orchestra performing in celebration of a man and woman in love as
well as the love story between romance and nature.
Mixed media art work by Christal Rice Cooper
Did you hear the sound?
Thousands of bees beating
their wings as one?
What shall I call that
ecstatic noise?
Love?
In “Conversation” the speaker of the
poem celebrates the differences of bug life – from the ladybug to inchworm –
the celebration of differences is relayed – from odors, to looks, and finally
to conversation. The ladybug and the
inchworm find comfort when they hide together in a warm room from the
cold. The warmer the inchworm and the
ladybug become the more they understand one another’s language.
When winter sunbeam illuminate its
speckled back
and strike the edges of my eyes as I
look at it
the inchworm in me
talks to the ladybug in you
Soon it is more than conversation or
escape from boredom the bugs seek from one another – but a reason to live and a
purpose to have.
As types of bugs
what sort of conversations can we
share:
Giving of an odor
hovering and buzzing around each
other?
Squirming together overturned?
In and out of pistils and stamens
uselessly stirring up pollen?
Before being mummified on the
windowsill
as types of bugs
what kind of warmth can we share?
A handful
of winter sunbeams,
short as a deer’s tail.
In “Gardener’s Language” the bee and its hive
complete the circle of life by celebrating the art of death in order for the
Japanese apricot tree to grow.
Far right - apricot blossoms. CCBSA3.0
In “His Photo” the speaker of the
poem tries to bring back to life the death of a loved one by memorizing a
photograph of the loved one’s face and remembering the memory represented by
that photograph. The speaker of the poem
compares the trapped memory in the photograph to a dried dragonfly.
Caught within the frame like a dried dragonfly is
the beach or one summer day but
fragments like the sound of waves are missing.
In “Air Over the Pedestrian
Bridge” two people in love are trying to find one another in the dark of the
city, overshadowed by a brilliant skyscraper.
The two people keep missing each other in the dark streets, but they finally
find each other within the new horizon visible when the “lightning bugs above a
stream bank” enable the couple to forget the “shabby pedestrian bridge in the
city’s heart” and finds a way to be victorious:
two hands which couldn’t clasp on the ground
opening a road in the night air
In “Spiritual Ears” the ears
that enable spirits to communicate loose those abilities when they ride on the
webs of spiders:
rode spider webs in the air
shook with each fragile movement
in
one moment became dull
stopped
working
no
sound was heard
In “Full but Hungry” Ra compares two full
butterflies to two sisters, one who birthed six children and the other barren,
and both sit in a rose garden after eating a full lunch. Toward the end of the
poem, the butterfly overstuffed with nectar symbolizes the full woman
overstuffed with unfertilized eggs.
She
raised three adopted kids
but
her full stomach has not disappeared
as
if extra space is left in her there
she
stops to smell flowers one by one.
hiding
in her fullness hunger sniffs
like
a butterfly with nectar still to be collected.
“Because We See Fireflies” is dedicated to Burmese female writer Khet Mar, whom HeeDuk Ra met in the International Writing
Program in Iowa.
HeeDuk Ra wrote the poem in response to the
horrible news that on September 26, 2007 Myanmar’s armed forces ruthlessly
killed groups of civilians protesting for democracy.
In the poem HeeDuk Ra offers encouragement to
Khet Mat, the Burmese people, and humanity by using the metaphors of fireflies
to represent peace, and crickets giving us the ability to speak despite our mouths
being silenced.
Left, firefly larva CCBYSA3.0. Right, male cricket (Gryllus) chirping. CCBYSA3.0
Because
We See Fireflies
So
Khet Mar, don’t cry, it will be alright
wipe
your tears and look at those fireflies,
they
are flickering with dim lights just like us.
Often
closing our mouths while speaking in broken words,
you
and I sit on the edge of the river and hear crickets chirp;
we
here might be similar to those insects,
but
I understand your broken words,
you
understand my broken words more than anyone,
because
they come from the same sadness.
Fireflies
radiating light in the darkness, or
crickets
chirping by rubbing their wings,
both
have bare feet the same as us.
So
Khet Mar, don’t cry, everything will be all right,
no
one will die,
because
we see fireflies this evening.
Our
flickering light
will
be seen by our children in the distance too;
toys
are broken and trees have fallen,
yet
peace will come to the children’s bare feet too.
The last poem in the collection, “The
House I Left” describes me and anyone who takes the time to read and digest Wild
Apple as a moth in awe, and in great comfort, despite the cold world we
may inhabit.
Six-spot burnet moth extracting nector from a Knautia flower. CCBYSA3.0
Now
I’m making a fire.
A
moth sleeping on the hearth flies up, amazed,
smoke
rises from damp wood.
Why
does the fire keep going out?
You’re
dark, like the inside of the hearth.
Pondering
that makes me dark, too.
I
should have left the light on
But
remember this:
Today,
like a shard of ice that won’t thaw
although
the fire is lit, I’ll insulate you
until
spring’s pheasants fly to a brighter place.
HeeDak Ra
