Back when Tigers smoked and Cranes
played fiddle late in the night,
back when men left the forests
for fear of the Moon Bears’ songs,
back when women were revered
for their surging red moon dance,
I remember less warfare,
more reason to feast and sing,
I recall my beginning
as father took mother’s hand
and bathed her in the river
in the late Korean Spring.
“Back when tigers used to smoke” is apparently a Korean idiom used as an equivalent to “once upon a time” or “a long time ago”.