For the Korean Grandmother on Sunset Boulevard
by Christine Kitano
So you are here. Night comes as it does
elsewhere: light pulls slowly away
from telephone posts, shadows of buildings
darken the pavement like something
spilled. Even the broken moon
seems to turn its face.
And again you find yourself
on this dark riverbed, this asphalt
miracle, holding your end of a rope
that goes slack when you tug it.
Such grief you bear alone.
But wait. Just now a light
approaches, its rich band draws
you forward, out of shadow.
It is here, the bus that will ferry
you home. Go ahead,
grandmother, go on.
From Sky Country. BOA Editions Ltd., 2017.
Reprinted with permission.
Read this and other poems by Christine Kitano in Sky Country, available from Amazon and your local bookstore.
As Christine Kitano shows in her moving poem, if we’re present enough to another person, we can actually become attuned to what they’re feeling. In fact, even the act of paying deep attention to a stranger can create a sense of connection, no matter how fleeting. The speaker in this poem watches the Korean grandmother at a bus stop so closely that she seems to feel her way into the grief that this older woman must bear alone. Yet that sadness soon seems to leave as “a light approaches,” and “its rich band draws you forward, out of shadow.” Both of these strangers seem brought out of the shadows by their momentary brush with each other, reminding me of what June Jordan once wrote: “I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me.” If we can learn to approach even the people we don’t know in our lives as worthy of reverence and attention, perhaps we can treat ourselves with that same kindness and regard. Ultimately, this poem serves as a blessing for the grandmother who, through the act of the speaker’s close observation, becomes a stranger no longer.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: The next time you find yourself out in the world, see if you can stay attuned for one of these deeper moments of presence, when you find yourself more deeply connected to the people around you. What feels true about them? See if you can recreate this moment with a close attention to detail.
ABOUT THE POET: Christine Kitano
Christine Kitano is the author of two collections of poetry, Birds of Paradise (Lynx House Press) and Sky Country (BOA Editions), which won the Central New York Book Award and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of the forthcoming They Rise Like a Wave (Blue Oak Press), an anthology of Asian American women and non-binary poets. In addition to teaching in the Departments of Writing and English at Ithaca College, she serves as Tompkins County Poet Laureate. Learn more at and photo from christinekitano.com
POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
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