Photograph courtesy of Youngsun Kang
Esther Ra is a writer, illustrator, and spoken word performer who alternates between California and her home in Seoul, South Korea. Esther is a J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School and the author of A Glossary of Light and Shadow (2023), winner of the Diode Full-Length Book Contest, and book of untranslatable things (2018), winner of the Grayson Books Chapbook Contest. She is also the founding editor of The Underwater Railroad, a literary unification project. Her work has received numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize, 49th Parallel Award, Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, Sweet Lit Poetry Prize, and the Women Writing War Poetry Award, among others. Esther often incorporates elements of legal narrative, Christian theology, Korean history, and peace-building in her work. She has given readings at venues including Stanford Law School, University of Oxford, Humanity in Action, UCLA, USC, and California State University, San Bernardino. Esther is always on the search for beauty, whether in city lights or the deep lightness of spring. The ocean never fails to move her to tears. And, of course, she loves to write.
what’s in a name
내가 그의 이름을 불러주었을 때
그는 나에게로 와서
꽃이 되었다.
—김춘수
You said that my poems reinvented the sky. But I was only trying to witness. I believe in two things as infinite: the blue of the sky and God’s heart. But pollution has damaged the one, our violence shrouded the other. You said leave God to take care of Himself. But even dogs lick the hands of their masters. What is worship but laying my tongue on the soft palm of mystery. What is love but kneeling at a name. My name is a clear, empty globe, glacial and glinting in the dark. Less fear, ash star, glass fester; terror and gesture and whisper. Esther, Esther. The first time you learned my name other than Esther, surprise, almost hurt, crossed your face. You pronounced me slowly in Korean, two syllables in the shocked air. But my name is an open secret; what is hidden lies under its door. What I meant to say is, I miss the warm sound of God’s laughter; I would plunder to hear it again. Do dogs recognize what’s in a name. Do some raindrops remember the sea. My God, don’t forget to remember. Call me flower, I’ll turn to your name.
originally published in Atlanta Review
