People Shopping for Milip

By Sang-Ok Shim

People Shopping for Milip*

70 kilometers from Madrid,
Where I hang my sight toward the ridge
That stretches across the field,
Toledo is sitting behind the 2,000-year-old city.
Away from the city along the Tajo River,
The alley where the traces of El Greco's masterpiece
Is hidden untouched.
In the houses with their mouths open on the steep hill,
The sun sits in layers, and
The color of the sky is faded,
But the moon below it is beautiful.
People are shopping for experiences in life stores:
With the Experience Card called "No One Backs You Up"
All the time or occasionally.
Like making pottery in Talavera de la Reina
With earth-smelling starlight,
People decorate their own gardens,
As if talking about themselves.
Dragging a cart containing baked pottery
In the naked red clay
Is a tribute to the ceramic dolls;
It is a sign of happiness for the porter in love with pottery.
I have ears that make that soft pastel tone inside me.
Pottery dolls with long-spun faces and bodies
Are traditional Spanish handmade.
Yadro brothers, who reached the level of art,
Under the shade of a mountain on that hill
With baked pottery at the kiln built by themselves,
Perfectly represented humans and nature
With soft expressions and faint color
That are called creators.
We record our experiences in the marketplace of life.
The still flickering expressions of fear and silence
Are kneaded in a soft pastel hue of love and hope.
I put soft pastel shades back
On top of everything in my life as a discussion;
Like the women in the Yardro brothers' ceramic dolls,
With a smiley face; I become a firebird
Who enjoys a passionate festival with a free dance.
Living is erasing dreams one by one every day,
Cleaning up one thing every day.
This is our own experience card
That No one backs you up.

*A pure Korean word for a unique sense or know-how learned
from experiences.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BF4PJ1ZS
• ISBN13: 9798352331613
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"