Baram 1

  The following poem is part of a chapbook that is something of an international artistic first: each of the poems also exists as an authorial moviepoem — that is, a poetic video in which all elements are created (authored) by one person.

I wrote the poem in the late aughts, soon after S and I married. It’s about returning home from work on a bitterly cond winter night but also being (and this is a curious psychological effect that winter has) filled with memories from childhood and adolescence.

Baram 1

While February-riding

My dark silver bike,

A Canadian wind

On a Korean street

Sharp-freshes my cheeks

In the dead of city night.

This cold poverty

Underlying the urban

Is nature,

And it is the gift

Of an objective god.

This cold is timeless

It is pure.

It links cities,

Nations,

And all the times

Of life.

I was twelve

When I first felt this wind.

I mean, consciously.

And now,

Cycling home against it again,

I head toward my wife,

Dimly recognizing

Its unnameable value,

Its heat,

Its love.

- Finn Harvor