Flowers Before
Flowers After
About _ A Poem by Yuri Kageyama
Going through
Various stages
A student one moment,
A lover, a worker, a friend
Other moments
A plumber
A soldier
A poet
Mother
Daughter
Father
Son
Changing
Each moment
But no matter
Which Moment
What Stage
Whatever Roles we play
The ways we make a Living,
It’s always
About Who we are
blank spaces over generations
a poem by Yuri Kageyama
my father was
slapped for
buying a
book of
poems
that his father
thought was
a rip-off _
so many
blank spaces
on
each
page
i was
a poet
long before i
became
anything else
so i didn’t
worry about
money or how i
was going
to make a living or
all the
blank
spaces
my son is
a drummer
he doesn’t yet
know the
blank spaces
of the world
are a gift
from that
grandfather
who was beaten for
a book
of
poems