Arrival by Yunkyo Moon-Kim

Arrival
Yunkyo Moon-Kim

The mountain does not move, it just is.
Then how come when I lift its blanket, spring
reaches all the way back? This looking, it cannot land.
It is not because of the tangled peaks, the sharp foliage.
It isn’t the water, taking over. When I was a boy,
grief came for me. It lured me upstream until
the dam pulled me out, gilled and trembling.
It made the rivers mutate and cull another river.
Evaporation, a form of flight, trailed ascension and
stones dried on the bank, along with the spawn.
As it was, I believed the myth. I believed I could
walk through any soft wind like a sieve.
You’ve already been ancient.
The mountain sank into rivers of trees, their buds
leaving and breaking open in the expanse of time
unknown to measure but the birds, mated to warmth. Reunion,

come closer. Along, move, the mountain, a being
swallowing other beings,
rivered wings unfurling embrace—

You danced on this hot earth. I dared to look.