Yeon Myung-ji
Moderator 
The Ark
By Yeon Myung-ji
Maori warriors flattened the lands won through bloodshed
and named it the South Island.
When the giant bustard flapped its wings,
the roots of the grassland trembled even in the wind.
On New Zealand’s earthquake island, isolated at 00:02,
three white-faced cows.
This tiny island of earth, where everything collapsed leaving only just enough,
is it God’s planned ark?
Counting toward infinity, then snap, short by the number 3.
Into that very plan, God drags the three cows.
The crumbling and cracking vast land is no longer a pasture for the cattle.
Like those times, excluded from the game of hopscotch at dusk,
the abandoned herd of cows.
The cows, puzzled by the suddenly narrowed field, comfort one another.
The cows can no longer go up
nor go down; nibbling on grass, they are peaceful for now.
The cows do not know God,
yet calmly, they rub their flanks together and graze.
That silent endurance of the cows.
Every crack in the world is a tear shed by God.
Cockscomb’s Mirror
Yeon Myung-ji
Who could throw a stone at the cockscomb?
Holding a balled-up hymnbook in the left hand and a hand mirror in the right,
they said they were leaving for Africa.
Wiping its own tears and brightening the corner,
in the face of the cockscomb lies a secret.
With a face burning red, stopping someone’s stomachache-
even on Mondays, fragile flowers cry out asking to become a shield.
It didn't notice the early-autumn bugle calls rising here and there.
The crooked mouth of the bugle crossed the wall and moved the traitors of Rome.
Underlining in red the proverb that says "he who guards his tongue is blessed,"
a corner of the flowerbed was given away.
To the cockscomb with no friends under its knee,
Sunday’s proverb underlined in blue, saying "he who guards the corner is blessed."
A bewildered proverb, Amen A~maem.
Children who discovered the cockscomb in the corner, taking courage and running over:
"Everything will be alright, cheer up!
A new proverb is beginning."
Yeon Myung-ji
Who could throw a stone at the cockscomb?
Holding a balled-up hymnbook in the left hand and a hand mirror in the right,
they said they were leaving for Africa.
Wiping its own tears and brightening the corner,
in the face of the cockscomb lies a secret.
With a face burning red, stopping someone’s stomachache-
even on Mondays, fragile flowers cry out asking to become a shield.
It didn't notice the early-autumn bugle calls rising here and there.
The crooked mouth of the bugle crossed the wall and moved the traitors of Rome.
Underlining in red the proverb that says "he who guards his tongue is blessed,"
a corner of the flowerbed was given away.
To the cockscomb with no friends under its knee,
Sunday’s proverb underlined in blue, saying "he who guards the corner is blessed."
A bewildered proverb, Amen A~maem.
Children who discovered the cockscomb in the corner, taking courage and running over:
"Everything will be alright, cheer up!
A new proverb is beginning."
Profile
Poet Yeon Myung-ji began her literary career in 2013 with the poetry collection Gashibi, published in the Minerva Poetry Series.
Poet Yeon Myung-ji began her literary career in 2013 with the poetry collection Gashibi, published in the Minerva Poetry Series.
Her published works include the poetry collections Sitting Like an Apple and Where would the House of the Sorry' be? the e-poetry collection Seventeen Marco Polos, and the travel essay Step by Step, Walking the Camino.
She has received the Tolstoy Literary Award, the Homi Literary Award, the Cheongsong Gaekju Literary Award, and the Aviation Literary Award. In 2025, she was awarded the Bronze Prize in Poetry at the Literature Asia Awards, Grand Prize Winner,9th Kim Myung-bae Litertary Award.
Her poems have been translated and published in local languages in India, Pakistan, Kosovo, Italy, Egypt, the United States, and Belgium,Greece,UK,Germany.
