By Spencer Shaak

On the way to Seongsan Harbor this morning
I met an old woman
speaking to a strand of seaweed, miyeok,
held in her weathered hands.
Her voice rose and fell like the tide,
her words had the stride of the sea,
a prayer or song, perhaps
even a poem in the dialect
of her grandmothers, spoken so clear
that I could understand
though only knowing some Korean,
as if the ocean taught us language.

The old woman graceful despite her years,
dressed in white cotton and indigo
of the haenyeo, her diving mask
pushed back on her silver hair,
her hands still dripping with seawater.

She knew the whole history of seaweed,
not only of this particular frond,
but also the miyeok my wife would need
tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow,
soup to restore what birth had taken
from her body.

The old woman knew iodine, iron,
she knew volcanic soil beneath
Hallasan that fed the coastal waters,
she knew what tides carried
these ribbons from the deep places
where they danced in the blue-green
current, she knew which mothers
had been nourished back to strength
by this ancient gift from the sea,
she knew the exhaustion in my eyes
of a man three days without sleep,
watching over new life, learning
the weight of being needed.

At first I thought the salt had frosted
her eyebrows white; we stood
face to face in the morning light,
I saw she was ancient as the island
strong in her movements,
carrying salt water in her bones.
She had the bearing of a sea-queen,
someone from old stories
of women who could hold their breath
for minutes, who brought up
treasures from the seafloor.

For one moment,
we shared the final poem of seaweed
while the volcanic island breathed
around us, and then the poem ended,
as all poems do.
She pressed miyeok into my palm—enough
for three bowls.
I bowed to her and whispered prayers for the wind
to drift strength to my wife and daughter
across the ocean’s endless conversation.