Author's note for "Why mate for life? Red crown crane" and "The Prisoner": In 1998, when I traveled to South Korea to emcee a series of cultural-exchange “rallies” and parades, I visited the border between South and North Korea—what they call the De-Militarized Zone, or the DMZ. Some of my Korean counterparts cried silently as we toured the area. That day was temperate and sunny but felt storm-filled, as if lightning was building up around us. The sensation was so odd! I knew then the “Cold War” between the Koreas was not cold at all. Around that time I’d read about Moon Sun Myung, a former POW in the Korean War who survived the Heung Nam death camp by serving others joyfully, maintaining his physical dignity, and learning from nature (even from insects) whenever possible. This miraculous lifestyle reminded me of another hero, of Viktor Frankel who survived Auschwitz by adhering to similar principles. “Why mate for life? Red crown crane” and “The Prisoner” are expressions of my hope that if a thriving life is possible in the face of tragedy—then so is compassion and reconciliation.  ~Jennifer Jean 

 

Why mate for life?  Red crown crane

 
prefer to
winter on that cold frontline.
In the rice stalks and creep sedge
that is the Cheorwon Basin--
between severed lovers
North and South
Korea.  They
arc stemmed necks,
duet and prance, then nest
in the DMZ, bearing two eggs--
one of which survives.  One egg

 
death, one life.  Together,
the cranes mean “fidelity,” 
risk.  A lover may depart,
 

stunned and cut by a copter--
from North or South--
blood spent from a frosted,
broken wing. The living crane
keening—wild
grief for life--
she is broken
too.  We’d rather break ourselves,

 
we’d rather be true South,
our backs to true
North, as if there never was one
hale body, one language:  Why

 
risk living
so near peril?  What if
he won’t love me later?
What if his Grim
rises out of the bog, strikes
early? It strikes me

 
the cranes together mean
also “eternity.”  Hereafter--

 
the ever answered unison caw,
the tireless coupling,
the neck-twining
into one

 
ebon peninsula
as intimate affirmation
of peace.

 Jennifer Jean's most recent poetry collection is The Fool; other collections include: The Archivist, Fishwife, and In the War. Her work has appeared in: Drunken Boat, Caketrain, Denver Quarterly, Tidal Basin Review, The Mom Egg, and more. She's Co-director of the Morning Garden Artist Retreats, and she teaches Free2Write poetry workshops at Amirah--a safe house for sex-trafficking survivors. Jennifer teaches writing at Pine Manor College.