Christina E. Petrides
Wheeling songbirds soar free
above three score years’ lost mines.
Endangered beasts limp through wilds
barred from bussed-in tourists
that gawk at distant concrete ruins,
deserted and grainy in magnified smog.
Smartphone-bereft camouflaged youths
trudge paths of rusted razor wire,
and shift well-oiled guns to wave
at skinny soldiers on the other side,
who sit grim and silent in stilted huts,
all wary of a long-postponed explosion.
An American expatriate, Christina E. Petrides lives and works on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. More than a score of her poems have appeared in various periodicals over the last two years. Her first children’s book, Blueberry Man, was published in 2020 by Tchaikovsky Family Books.
