Chuseok 추석
Today my uncle and his wife will visit
my grandparents’ tomb the way they do every year.
They will leave trays stacked high with persimmons
and powdered tteok then say a christian prayer
as the wind stirs everything into wakefulness.
On 추석 we remember the rise of the Silla,
kingdom of gold crowns with jade
carved and dangling like grapes.
We celebrate three centuries of unity,
north and south, dead and living together.
We salute the rising moon.
I think of my sister’s and her son’s graves
7,000 miles from my grandparents’ tomb,
in Troy, Michigan, headstones flush to the ground.
Every time it rains the water floats trash
down from the street nearby:
a cigarette box, crumpled Burger King cups,
plastic bags torn like the skin of ravaged prey.
If I could go back I would claim a summit
and build them a tomb.
I would set Silla crowns upon their heads.
Every year, I’d bring gifts and invite the wind
into where their skeletal jaws hang wide open
forever trying to say one last thing.
my grandparents’ tomb the way they do every year.
They will leave trays stacked high with persimmons
and powdered tteok then say a christian prayer
as the wind stirs everything into wakefulness.
On 추석 we remember the rise of the Silla,
kingdom of gold crowns with jade
carved and dangling like grapes.
We celebrate three centuries of unity,
north and south, dead and living together.
We salute the rising moon.
I think of my sister’s and her son’s graves
7,000 miles from my grandparents’ tomb,
in Troy, Michigan, headstones flush to the ground.
Every time it rains the water floats trash
down from the street nearby:
a cigarette box, crumpled Burger King cups,
plastic bags torn like the skin of ravaged prey.
If I could go back I would claim a summit
and build them a tomb.
I would set Silla crowns upon their heads.
Every year, I’d bring gifts and invite the wind
into where their skeletal jaws hang wide open
forever trying to say one last thing.
Joan Kwon Glass is a Binder and a biracial Korean American who grew up in Seoul, South Korea and in Michigan. She lives near New Haven, Connecticut. Her poems have recently been published or are upcoming in Rust & Moth, Rattle, SWWIM, Rogue Agent, South Florida Poetry Journal, FEED, Ghost City Review and many others. Her poem, “Bathing Scene,” was featured on the Saturday Poetry Series: Poetry as it Ought to Be, and her poem “Cartouche,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She tweets @joanpglass.
Art: Just Can't Let it Go by Kristin LaFollette