Birthday

Reheating seaweed soup
scooped and steeped from the Milky Way
rummaging sharply into the corners of torn memory
my unripe mother flickers like a candle watching the soup boil

There is no sieve to strain the light of her face that day
yet a cotton quilt smile that could soothe even icicles
a yearning for tomorrow holding starlight pooled within
the fluttering back of my twenty two year old mother

The remaining warmth in the seaweed soup she ate back then
seeping into my time grown heavy as it slowly reduces
tapping my worn and weathered pupils
engraving bitter salty tenacious footprints

Before the birthday dawn dries away
even if only in the haze of a dream
it would be good to see my mother as she was that young day
Copyright © | Year Posted 2026

Poem

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Daniels Avatar
February 10, 2026 at 1:46 AM
Beautiful memory, Sun. Happy Birthday if it was your birthday. X. I loved the images of soup cooking, warmth & quilt. So effective how you weave the ephemeral with the concrete. Blessings, talented Poet. Hug.
Hwang Avatar
February 10, 2026 at 3:34 PM
Thank you. I’m quietly amazed by how deeply you understood the emotional core of our culture behind this poem. That understanding stays with me.
Hind Avatar
February 7, 2026 at 8:01 PM
This is very beautiful, Sun.
Hwang Avatar
February 8, 2026 at 2:53 PM
Such a beautiful comment, thank you.
Hwang Avatar
February 7, 2026 at 5:47 PM
*** Seaweed soup is traditionally eaten in Korea on birthdays. It recalls the food a mother eats after childbirth, and thus carries the memory of birth, motherhood, and the body that gave life. In this poem, the soup functions not as celebration, but as a quiet return to that origin.
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