Untitled by Cynthia Yatchman
In Japanese Memoriam
Wakako Ueshima
Light o-senko and feed the dead
a flare, blurred
smokes
hanging words
One of three hundred sixty-five,
immortalized
reduced
now the lonely One
Frozen in grey
embraced by God’s shades
evergreen
and lasting
A thousand beads
float
in clouds,
starchy
holy
Such pale grains
beckon us
to the aged wood,
long touched
and the fragrant steam leads you back.
Wakako Ueshima (she/her) is a Japanese American English Literature and Creative Writing student at Washington University in St. Louis, born in New York with a commitment to representing in viscerally, painstakingly raw literature what it means to be human.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist. A former ceramicist, she studied with J.T. Abernathy in Ann Arbor, MI, though after receiving her B.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington, she switched from 3D art to 2D and has stayed there since, working primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections and has been shown nationally in California, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Wyoming. She has exhibited extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is a member of the Seattle Print Art Association, Women Painters of Washington, and COCA (Center of Contemporary Art).