The Moon of Ubasute
After the Woodblock Print
by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Years from now
when I am old,
blind and crippled—
his mother said—
you must carry
me up the slope
of Tanigawa,
past the ancient
knotted pine,
leave me in a cradle
of hakone grass
and moss. Without pity,
my son, the moon
will watch as I reach
for my mother—
Okaasan, Okaasan.
The ginkgos will bow,
weep their leaves,
bury me in gold.
Aaron Caycedo-Kimura was born in Santa Rosa, CA. His chapbook Ubasute was selected by Jennifer Franklin, Peggy Ellsberg, and Margo Taft Stever as the 2020 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition winner. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Poet Lore, DMQ Review, Tule Review, and elsewhere. Aaron earned his MFA from Boston University and is a recipient of a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry.
