Classic Poem

Do you know a land
whose people live more still, more forlorn
than a temple deep in the mountains,
the fourth hour past midnight,
a quiet dream?

Do you know of a land whose people live
with their words folded away, hung
on a rack beneath the clothes
worn for occasions?

Whose flesh is cheapest in the world.
A land where a dollar is more than enough
to buy two or three pretty young poppies,
and the heart
is never old. Perhaps
pawned, but never sold, despite
two thousand years'
betrothal.

And with that pledge redeemed
and starting home, a land
that could live on kimch'i
rice
and water,
ten thousand years
for another such pledge
to wait.