Korean Women,1962

buoying brown faces in billowing white cotton

cinched at ankle and wrist for warmth

like parachutes floating up

from the village in the valley

fifteen or twenty women, of various ages

to where I sat alone on frozen ground, eighteen

minding that stupid radio listening

to the river rushing in the headset, 106’s

firing idiotically over the knoll—

gowns of snow

spiraling across crags in the distance

seemed to appear on my hill—

the women came to collect ammo boxes

scattered on the ground, for firewood—

the hills, once full of fabulous forests,

now barren

after forty odd years of Japanese occupation

stripped them of trees, followed by the Korean war:

grateful that I didn’t care if they took them

the women built a fire, encircled it,

squatted and turned, one
after the other their giggling faces,

waving at me to come over and warm up

across the DMZ, you could hear North Koreans

shifting gears in their trucks, while the women

squeezed me in among them around their fire

on that empty freezing hill
talking a language I barely understood

warmth translating every word

guns going off out of sight

the radio static crackling in the snowbank