The DMZ
I recently learned that the 2-1/2-mile-wide stretch of land that has divided the two Koreas for sixty-five years, the so-called Demilitarized Zone, has become a haven for wildlife. Free from human interference since guns fell silent in 1953, this corridor slicing the Korean peninsula in half has found a new purpose.
Around five thousand species of plants and animals thrive in this forsaken place, including almost half of Korea’s endangered species. Trenches dug by soldiers a lifetime ago for protection from bombs and snipers have filled with freshwater, becoming marsh habitat for water birds and thousands of species of insects, plants, and fungi. Creeks whose banks are still littered with mines ripple with the silver backs of cherry salmon and Manchurian trout. Ruins of homes that once rang with children’s laughter and bubbling, boiling pots of rice are now shelters for civets, rat snakes, and wild cats. Engaging in fights for mates, wild boar clash on derelict highways, while Asiatic black bear and mountain goats regard each other across fields marked with live ordnance signs.
Migrating birds from Russia, China, and far beyond seek out the safety of the DMZ every year. Perhaps most exciting, critically endangered, red-crowned cranes are making a comeback. Well over half the world’s population of these symbols of peace and fidelity engage in courtship dances in the shadow of barbed wire fences and guard shacks, entwining their long, lovely necks like climbing vines. Soldiers stationed along the border report seeing rare Amur leopard and Siberian tiger even as those soldiers’ grandparents, uncles, and cousins, trapped on the other side of the 38th parallel, fade from living memory.
I’ve heard it said that couples should never go to bed angry. Talk it out before you sleep, they say. Don’t let words spoken in anger fester and harden overnight. I’m not so sure it’s true. Sleeping apart, with a housecat running missions between our outposts like a nervous diplomat brokering a parlay, I think more clearly. Both of us breathe undisturbed air. There is space to relax. When dawn turns the sky grey and we shuffle, grumpy and aching, to the breakfast table, snow begins to fall. It settles on our shoulders and coffee cups, and onto our hands as we reach for each other, whispering over and over, until we have to say it out loud, that the whole thing was useless. How hurtful it all was, and how pointless.
The red-crowned crane
