Jeolmul Forest on Je Ju Island

From the collection: The Dear John Poems:
An American Expatriate in Korea.

by Kenneth Parsons

A butterfly, pale green with yellow dots, as big
As John’s hand, lights on the cabin’s screen each night.
Off the beaten path, a deer darts in and out of sight,
Spooked by a foot-fall’s snap of a dry twig.
Black crows caw shriek-like, their wings’ span as wide
As a horned owl’s.  The pines branchless for twenty feet,
But needled green limbs rise skyward, thirty meters high.
Taller than a Georgia pine, the tallest he’s ever seen.
And the mountain stream’s water runs clear and clean as the forest.
For the moment, Jeolmul’s green walls quench John’s constant
spirit-thirst.