seyoung kwon
The Lowest Octave:
Inhale,
feel the warm breath
from the deepest gulf
of your lungs.
Gently press the key,
wait for a rare moment,
through which the lowest note travel
the high frequency wave.
Blow,
Until the silver metal
Senses the swirling of the air,
Palming from the head joint
to the foot joint.
The First Octave:
It is like a bear
Emerging from its hibernation,
Dragging its brown body out of the cave.
It gradually lifts its feet,
One by one,
and lands softly among the sleeping bunnies
who it shared the cave with,
not to disturb them dreaming.
The warmth where the bear left
Becomes a microfiber blanket for the rabbits.
The Second Octave:
Is the coexistence of two extremes,
The beginning of a motorcycles’ march
On a thick iceberg might be
Smooth like an every single gesture of
Yuna Kim spiralling in her figure stake.
You never realized the thread-like crack on the iceberg
Was melting and expanding its dominion
From the exhaust fume of the marching motorcycles,
and eventually demolished the iceberg and devoured you,
Until it’s too late.
The Third Octave:
Fingers whirl like a pinwheel in a gale
While the air never stops flowing
In and out of the metal woodwind.
The air turns into
a tear of a girl praying for a withering rose,
an excitement of clowns after a circus,
or flapping wings of birds
(or the dignity of an English soldier.)
The Fourth Octave:
Sting like a bee,
As fast as how the light travels.
Remember the scanty umber cedars,
Freezing snowdrift
That inhaled you,
Scanty umber cedar trees,
A pile of snow, and
Filemot leaves that
confined you.
Now, condense your pain into
your coldest air then
Blow it out.
The rage sublimed into
The fastest air would
Congeal the warm breath that gently palms the flute,
Destroy the bear’s way out of the cave,
Unbalance the mutual existence of the two extremes,
Break the pinwheel and stop the air flow, and
Eventually overwhelm the twenty-one notes below and
Reign the silver metal,
With its highness that would
Surprise even a hummingbird.
***
Seyoung Kwon loves to fly kites on windy days and in summer, she spends time eating ice cream outdoors, especially in the park while walking her Pomeranian named Hodu. She enjoys writing in her free time with her favorite Starbucks drink, and her poem was once published on the Heritage Review.