Under the persimmon tree in the starry night

Anyone who visits to read a poem becomes a guest, who deserves even a cup of water or seasonal tea delicately and carefully prepared for the sake of reception. In spring, poetry of butterflies and flowers is served. Likewise, purely white snow and loneliness are contained in poems. In this regard, it may be only natural that today’s poetry sings about a night covered with stars shining in the skies because it is a summer night when we look up at the stars until late at night. To take another step forward, it is not too early to prepare a story of a persimmon tree because summer is soon to give way to fall. We all wait for it to come.

This heart-touching piece is by far the most beautiful among all the poems in the poet’s latest book of poetry. His dead father comes up in this poem where a persimmon tree in a rural village is rich in fruits. The father loves a fruitful persimmon tree and his son thinks that it is a hassle to take care of the tree. When the father passes away, the poet’s mother gives up on the tree, saying, “What is the use of picking all those persimmons when your dad is gone?” A blunt tone of his mother implies a hole in her heart bruised with sadness, emptiness and depression due to her husband’s death. A feeling of sadness sometimes is condensed and turned into a star. We all know that the star described in this poem is not an actual but a conceptual one up in the skies of his mother’s heart, which always goes to her husband who cherishes the persimmon tree that the poet portrays poetically.

I was told that the poet’s mother passed away not long after his father’s death as if she had followed her husband. The poet likens the work of writing the book of poetry to the job of building a grave of his mother. Leaving through the book, I cannot help but trying to find what has since happened to the persimmon tree. Worrying that it may hurt to saw the trunk of a tree in the heart, I imagine myself crying out just like the poet.