Poetry by Lynn Choi

Edited by Kaylie Harley

i wonder if i am supposed to be happy

to have all my life left in front of me,

but all i recall are paper cranes laid across walls

bright, patterned, useless,

with creases sharp and wings folded back;

when i’ve creased the wing 

of my last little paper crane

they’ll be pinned for all to see.

a thousand paper cranes make a wish;

i wonder what it is like to have my entire life laid in front of me:

• two/three a day
• four for when i forget
• hang them, flatten them, lay them down
  • pull out the wings so they can fly

1001, it ends the same as it begins

creases sharp, wings folded back, 

and i can rest.

when my last little paper crane takes flight

and sinks below the ocean horizon

the waves will greet my feet, feet sunken into sand

and i will watch the dawn’s sunrise—

head fast toward the light. 

when i have all of my life left in front of me,

i wonder if i will be happy.

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Artist Statement: This poem was inspired by a novel I’d read in elementary school, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It’s based on a true story of a young Japanese girl with leukemia who tried to fold a thousand paper cranes so that, according to Japanese legend, she would be granted a wish. The initial draft of this poem was written when I was in my senior year of high school and I was reminded of this story by the dozens of paper cranes one of my teachers had hung up in her classroom. That period of my life was one where I felt a lot of uncertainty about my purpose and my future, and to me the symbolism of the paper cranes embodied a kind of feeling that I had a hard time putting into words; the feeling of having to push forward underlaid the anxiety of not knowing exactly where I was heading.