Allow Me by Chungmi Kim

Allow Me

by Chungmi Kim

If I must worry about how

I will live in my old age

without wealth

I would be without health now

and how can I live to be

old?

If I must worry about how

I will live in my old age

without love

I would be without dreams now

and how can I go on living

another day?

Allow me to sit in the sun

and listen to the sky.

I will love you gently.

Allow me to stay in my room

and weave my rainbows.

I will love you truly.

Like a colt in the meadow

with no boundary

allow me

to wander around

till I hear the autumn

stealthily

strolling by my door.

I will be waiting

to be with you

then.

This poem was published in Chungmi Kim's 2004 book, Glacier Lily (Red Hen Press). Kim was born in Korea and moved to the US after graduating college. Besides poetry, she also writes screenplays, and writes and produces TV shows. The documentary Korea: The New Power in the Pacific earned her an Emmy nomination. Her poetry appears in a number of anthologies.

I know if you have read my commentaries even just a few times you know I love it when poems ask questions, and this one starts with two doozies. The first is very practical. The second is less practical but just as important. What is old age without health? Without love?

The poem does not directly answer these questions, but turns into a love poem, filled with lovely images grounded in nature and directed to a you. Sun, sky, rainbow, horse, meadow,

all hinting at summer (a metaphor for young adulthood). The speaker wants freedom at this time of life

Then, this stunning stanza:

till I hear the autumn

stealthily

strolling by my door.

Once age settles in (autumn) and comes closer, then the speaker will be ready to settle down. The speaker tells the "you" that she will be waiting, not for him, but to be with him.

But first? Some summertime fun.

I love this poem. I love what it says and how it says it. It is a love poem, but one that is not usual in what love means to the speaker.

See you Wednesday!