While having her diaper changed, my mother has noble eyes like an owl.

Satoko Kawano

From a collection of tanka poems, “Hospitality.”  People helped my old mother to sit up in bed every day, had her eat with a spoon, changed her diaper, and cleaned her body until she died quietly. The poet wondered where their smile came from. She wrote in the afterword that warmed by a series of small dedications, an old woman like a dead branch was able to live her precious life fully in the world growing more intolerant."

"July 3  2019

from “Oriori no Kotoba” by Kiyokazu Washida, The Asahi Shimbun"