The Last Brush

This morning the dew is unusually clear
Even the grass at the execution ground knows it is spring

In the tribunal prison I counted a hundred days
Scratching the dates on the wall with my nails
At first I was angry. Then I was sad.
Now it is nothing at all. It is simply quiet.
No light enters a room without a window
But close my eyes and I see the sea at Jeju
That horizon I watched from exile
It had no end — like my writing

They tell me today is the last
Good.
Because it is the last, there are things I can say

Kill me
But my writing has already left
Cut off this head
But you cannot cut the mouths of the people
The brush ends here
But the ink has already soaked in
Not into paper
But into a thousand chests

My father put a brush in my hand
Winter, four years old, my hand so small
That the brush was bigger than it
My father said, one who writes
Lives longer than a king
I did not know then what those words weighed
Only now, in this cell, do I know
The king can kill me
But the king too will die one day
And if my writing lives a single day longer than the king
Then I have won

If you ask whether I have regrets
I have none
There is only one thing I wanted

Kill me
But my writing has already left
Cut off this head
But you cannot cut the mouths of the people
The brush ends here
But the ink has already soaked in
Not into paper
But into a thousand chests

This is the one thing
I wanted to see one more spring
When the plum blossoms open on Jeju
That path where the petals blew in the wind
It was exile, but it was beautiful
I learned it here in prison
When I was free I did not know freedom
When I could hold a brush I did not know its weight
Now that both are gone, I can see both

Kill me
This is my last piece of writing
Cut off this head
This is my last brush
But hear me, king
A shoot will break through the ash
On the paper you burned
New letters will bloom

I set down the brush
The ink dries
But the writing
The writing remains