🌳 At the Edge of Life

[진영]

🌳 At the Edge of Life

Part I – Two Ancient Trees Enduring

Last night,
beneath the dim streetlight,
two shadows walked side by side.

Burdened by what seemed like ninety years of time,
they no longer had the strength to look at each other,
but only to place one foot before the other,
slowly, steadily, in silence.

Even on the straight road
their distance narrowed, then widened again.
So it is with the road of life:
drawing near, then drifting apart,
yet always bound by the years carried together.

Thud, thud—
footsteps breaking the stillness of the night.
Heavy, faltering steps,
as if they might collapse at any moment,
touched my heart with a quiet ache.

One day, I too
will walk like this,
and I seemed to know it already.

In their silhouettes I saw
two ancient trees.
Stripped of leaves, of blossoms,
yet standing still—
because another tree stood nearby,
holding them from falling.

Their silent steps
asked me softly:

“How will you walk
the final road?
Are you ready?”

🌙🌳
September 13, 2025
Night walk across the apartment skybridge

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Part II – The Tremor of Life

September 14, 2025
Night walk, apartment skybridge


On a bench beneath the night sky,
the same two elders I had seen before
appeared again this evening.

As I passed,
I heard their voices,
struggling into the air.

Was it a song?
Or merely a groan?
Like metal scraping,
like phlegm dragged from the throat—
a thin, mosquito-like tremor
forcing its way out.

Indeed,
it was a song drained of rhythm,
a melody emptied of ease.

Yet it was not only sound.
It was the cry of life itself,
at the edge of its final moment,
still declaring:
“I am alive.”

Unbidden,
a shiver ran through me.
Pity and heaviness pressed upon my chest.

But that faint tremor
was not a dying ember—
it was a fire yet unextinguished.

Like the last leaf clinging to the branch,
a single fragile proof of hope,
visible only because it still lives.

And then, suddenly, I understood.
A human life may not remain as song,
but even a whisper,
a single trembling note,
is enough to bear witness—
to prove one’s existence
until the very end.


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September 14, 2025, Sunday · 10:30 pm
By the pond at Oryukdo Park
JS Kim