A white old lady

Led me to my seat.

She was about seventy years old or so,

Wearing a uniform with a white collar,

And silver pierced earrings

On her ears.

A blue stone ring

On her finger whose hand gives me a program.

When I received it,

Her cold roughness touched me.

Manhattan, where many aged people live alone.

Does she also

Live alone in this

Giant tourist attraction?

I watched the uniformed old lady

Until the play began.

From Broadway

The bus passes through Seventh Avenue.

When I got on the bus

Two old ladies were sitting

side by side.

At the second bus stop

Another old lady got on leaning on a stick.

Times Square at nearly twelve o'clock

At her back.

Even a postcard,

If you write her in large letters

And add a drawing on it,

Lets her be glad.

My mother's letter read so.

With her ten colleagues, It says,

My grandmother had played a tambourine

Like a docile kindergarten child.

In Peony Room,

Higashimatsuyama Nursery Home,

My grandmother

Is waiting alone for the time

To be carried to the bed from the chair.

I'd like to adorn her with accessories.

Where will that day

Let an aged me sit?

On my way home from the theater

I looked straight

Ahead.

From “The Complete Poems of Ryo Kisaka” published in 1997 by Shichosha