A Lonely Zucchini Summer

I suspect a lonely summer with neighbors all living behind locked doors after seeing

what’s happening to our front garden. Look at the zucchini!!! Where they came from is

nature’s mystery. I planted only two starter plants.

zucchini bread, anyone?

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A Three Martini PT Session

The therapist attached electrode wires to my sore spots, put a pillow under my head and knees and asked, “Are you comfortable? Can I do anything before I leave you for 20 minutes?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling pampered and comfortable, “Bring me an Apple Martini with a straw.”

She laughed and said, “Close your eyes and imagine that martini.”

Ten minutes later she returned to see how I was doing. I slurred my speech and said, ”I’m on my 3rd apple martini.”

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Winners of Wordsworth’s Poe-Tree Contest

Wordsworth’s Poe-TREE Contest Winners

Apr 22

Happy Earth Day, everyone! We are celebrating by announcing the winners of the Wordsworth the Poet “Poe-TREE Contest!”

In the Wordsworth Poe-TREE Contest, students were asked to write a poem celebrating their favorite tree, following the model of Wordsworth the Mouse and his friends in the book Wordsworth! Stop the Bulldozer! The young mice in the story campaign to save the trees in their community by writing poems reminding all the neighbors about the special qualities of the trees around them.

Poems were judged based on creativity, poetic merit and how well they conveyed what makes the trees special to the students. The six contest winners will receive a copies of each of the three books in the Wordsworth series, a gardening tool kit and a Koa Legacy Tree from the Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative, donated by Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods.

K-5 Division Winners:

Makayla Rose Molden

Makayla Rose Molden (age 6, Kapolei, Mauka Lani Elementary), untitled

The Mountain Apple tree is yummy to me.
The fruit is up so high to knock it down is a game I try.
I collect the fruit and make apple pie.

Eli Wolfe

Eli Wolfe (age 5, Honolulu, University Laboratory School), “Banyan Tree”

I like to climb the
Banyan tree
at Barwick.
I can climb to
the sky.
You should try it too
someday.
It is so fun.

Grade 6-8 Division:

Cindy Tsou

Min-Hua (Cindy) Tsou (age 11, Kapolei, Kapolei Middle School), “Red Maple Tree (Acer rubrum)”

A bright, scarlet leaf blew by.
A red lobed leaf fall and fly.
It can be red, yellow and even green.
Red maple trees makes a beautiful scene.
It grows in the north, with it’s flower blooming back and forth.
A red maple tree brings red, bright shines.
A red maple is of course, very fine.

Emerson Goo

Emerson Goo (age 12, Honolulu, Niu Valley Middle School), “Forest Guardians”

Sentinels at watch
Forest guardians holding
Treasured memories

Grade 9-12 Division:

Sophie Corless

Sophie Corless (age 15, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Northern Highlands Regional High School), “The Lemon Tree”

The cool sticky air clings to me;
my bare feet squelch in the grass
just after the rain shower.
The lemon tree stands in the back corner
towering over the garden, and has a prevailing presence.
Under the tree lies my step ladder,
with my initials carved in the leg.
The wicker basket dangles
on a tiny branch at my height.
I have my technique down,
twist and snap over and over again.
Even the bees and ants are fixated on my movements,
their fragile wings and tiny legs
seem to stop to observe.
Little droplets collect in the pores of the rind,
making my hand cool,
droplets of lemon juice ooze through the pores
and run down my hand to my wrist and to my elbow,
stopping and then dripping off.
By the end I am covered in a mixture of rain and lemon,
dried and sticky.
With every lemon I snap off,
the branch snaps back and sprinkles me with rain.
I swear I hear my sweltering forehead
sizzle against the cool droplets.
In the kitchen I squeeze every last lemon,
popping the juice into the pitcher with the yellow flowers,
along with a fistful of sugar and a splash of water.
I crack the ice tray in half, scooping out the cubes.
The first sip makes my face contort
into an uncomfortable position,
one you can’t avoid,
but the last is always the sweetest.

Zoe Edelman Brier

Zoe Edelman Brier (age 18, Allendale, New Jersey, Northern Highlands Regional High School), “Veins of Color”

I remember maple Leaf picking
with my father before the bus
came to ship me off
to a grey school building
with a grey blacktop
and grey windows.
The colors of the Leaves
were brighter than anything
I’d ever seen, standing out
against the blah of morning.
even through fog,
the Leaves shown like bright beacons
of change and hope for the future.
the Leaves would vein and crinkle
in red and orange and yellow,
mixing in a thin canvas.
My father would sit me on his shoulders
and have me reach the highest branch
possible to get the best Leaf
to press in a book that I still have
12 years later, the colors frozen in time,
unbrowned and delicate, red stains
clashing with the dark green of Leaf.

 

Congratulations to all our winners and to all the poets who entered our contest. Wordsworth’s message to you all: Don ‘t stop writing poems and continue to save our trees.  Give your favorite tree a hug!

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I Promised You a Rose Garden, Alzheimer’s “Patients”

Don’t Turn Me Into a Liar

I received two phone calls  in three days, on the same subject,  but from opposite sides of the coin. The call today was from a caregiver who had lost her husband to various illnesses and some dementia. She thanked me for helping her change her perspective on her husband’s behavior. To reprogram her mind from being aggravated at her husband’s behavior to understanding that, that was the best he could do under the circumstance.  “I feel good about how I cared for him,” she said, “it was all about changing my attitude and seeing things differently.”

The other call came from a woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was in a session that I presented  in Kona, on the Big Island, at the health facility where she now lives. “I felt so good and inspired listening to you speak of treating dementia people with dignity and compassion,” she said. “If this was in store for me, I felt really good about being here with this disease.

“But,” she continued, “it’s not happening. I’m not being treated with dignity. I also watch the staff and they are very rude to other residents and they just don’t understand why we’re here. What you spoke to us about being treated with dignity , is not happening.”

This morning my mother and I began a story in the Honolulu Star/Advertiser on caregiving.

The complete story  is posted by my publisher  on my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com//FrancesKakugawa

It can also be found here:http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20130415_Program_gives_caregivers_tools_to_cope.html?id=202969511

I’m pleased that all who were interviewed for the story are on the same page , that monies must be spent on human resources on behalf of  our loved ones who are living with Alzheimer’s and other dementia related diseases. The deliverance of nursing and medical skills must be based on the humanities.

I saw blind spots at the nursing facility where my mother resided in the late 90’s  so I volunteered  to train all staff members to  integrate their skills knowledge with compassion, and to become aware of each client as a human being.  To see how we have extended our circle of family to them for the care of our loved ones, with trust and commitment.

A month ago, I called the head nurse and was pleased to know, the list I had offered them on being humanistic nurses and aides, was still on the wall in their lounge and that list is still  current today.

It can be done, so I’m hopeful that grant monies will be used to help us all learn what it means to be human.

Otherwise, that woman who had called me from that facility turns me into a fantasy story teller.  I did promise her a rose garden.

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The Kitchen and Warm Pepsi

The Kitchen

 

Fanny’s kitchen was always open

to grubby little me who, in want of a pepsi

always knew where to go.

 

too shy for social etiquette,

I’d  sit on her porch

waiting to be seen.

 

soon her voice, “Oh, Hideko,

I neva see you. So hot today,

you want some pepsi?”

 

my nod would take me

into her kitchen where she poured

warm pepsi in an aluminum mug.

 

she could have used crystal,

it would have been safely held

between my hands, as I  sipped and felt

 

warm pepsi flow down my parched throat.

there was no ice in our village, no electricity

or supermarkets, deprivation became  bliss.

 

looking back, I hear the dialogue

between Fanny and her children:

“ma, what happened to the can of pepsi?”

 

“oh, that Kakugawa girl was here again

so I gave it to her.”

“oh man, she always here, drinking our pepsi.”

 

When I became a caregiver

for my mother with Alzheimer’s,

I sought Fanny’s kitchen once again.

 

she was gone then, and we were

all scattered, after Pele’s eruption

that wiped our Kapoho village away.

 

oh , how I needed a pepsi drink

living half in fear in the eerie world

called Alzheimer’s.

 

using that Kapoho girl savvy

I found solace in Jane’s  home.

a Fanny in every aspect.

 

her door unlocked for my visits,

I’d go straight into her kitchen.

“I need a mother,” I’d say,

 

and sit myself down at her kitchen table.

“I dropped my mother at adult care

and I’m tired and hungry.”

 

that brought Jane to her feet. brewed decaf coffee,

lunch or breakfast, pending time of  my visit,

dessert and more decaf while I kept one eye on the clock.

 

there is something so motherly to hear,

“eat, eat. You look too thin.”

 

once again I hear the conversation at the end of Jane’s day,

her family gathered around the dinner table.

“Ma, what happened to last night’s left over dinner?”

 

“Oh, Fran was here today.”

 

it was a place where I sat to gather myself,

a self that was being gnawed away

by that Alzheimer’s thief. and Jane let me be.

 

Jane died last week and I grieve

for the kitchen she offered me, no matter what time of day,

and for being mother when I needed one most.

 

There’s  a kitchen here in Sacramento

since my move eight years ago, a kitchen with another

name, but the same kitchen since my childhood and caregiving  years.

 

Mary’s kitchen is where I now sit,

when my need for a mother, a clearer me, or a friend

creeps up on me and I shout, “I need a kitchen.”

 

I sit and wait for freshly brewed decaf coffee,

or hot green tea with healthy snacks,

mostly home – made by Mary’s hands.

 

I honor all three women this April day,

for a kitchen without lock and warm pepsi

to soothe a parched soul.

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Haiku Caregivers

caregivers capture

the ah-ness of a deep breath

a haiku moment

There is a magical process occurring among the caregivers in our poetry support group as I write this.

Who would have thought a few minutes devoted to haiku writing would have turned into a haiku marathon. Within hours, emails  arrived with haiku poems  written by my caregivers. I am possessive here since they belong to my poetry support group.

Their  haiku poems which appear below, show what happens when a simple form of poetry is put into the hands of caregivers, post and present, whose minds have no locks. Just as they have taken every aspect of  caregiving with diligence, bravery and  love, they  have taken their pens to still another level of being artfully human. Caregiver Julia Couzens  insightfully called this  new adventure,  “the art of distilling the now.” Ah Basho, Shiki, Buson, are you smiling as you see how this art form has added still another dimension to caregiving: A haiku pause that takes only 17 syllables; a very affordable pause, time-wise,  in their busy lives, a pause that often takes them to other places.Here are a few from their incredible spirit…

          Caring for Papa

          Also working remotely

          It must be Friday

michelle

The door squeaks softly

 A sound “anybody there?”

 Morning has started.

                  penny

 On lap, poodle sleeps

 Head pillowed on typing arm

 Small “woof.” Email sent.

                   judy

At the computer

Haiku written and erased

Now, this one is done.

judy

 

         sealed she in glass

         decisions print inked  black

         spring “spectations damped

genie

 

Oh great banyan tree

With arms outstretched far and wide

In warm aloha.

diane

 

 

Find the yellow piece.

A gnarled hand responds slowly

And finds the right spot.

diane.

 

The lone turkey hen

Limps slowly, trying to follow

Her feathered family.

mary

 

 staring at computer

 groping for words of haiku

birds frolic in trees.

julia

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“The Monkey’s Paw” – TONIGHT ONLY!

The Monkey’s Paw

(TONIGHT ONLY!  click on poster to read announcement)

Red’s poem will be read on the radio tonight – KVMR (85.9 fm) at 9-10 pm, on T.E. Wolf’s “Word in Edgewise”.  If you’re not in the listening area for KVMR, you can hear it streamed at http://www.kvmr.org

It’s real spooky, so leave the lights on or hang on to your teddy bear.

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Peter Rabbit is Gone: Duty Called

Remember the rabbit who invaded our garden relentlessly and left nothing for our dinner table?

http://franceskakugawa.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/invasion-of-peter-rabbit/

I haven’t seen him for over a month and the reason is quite obvious. He’s busy getting those eggs ready for the Great Easter Egg Hunt.

If you see him in your yard, please keep him there.

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from my kitchen

No, I don’t spend all my days at the mall. I also enjoy the kitchen. Sometimes they look better than what the palate would want, but . . .

This is way better than the first cake I baked. I didn’t have a 8 X 8 pan so I poured the batter into a 9 X 11 pan, covering just half of the pan,  believing the batter would rise upward. It didn’t and I had a layer of  crispy cake. They don’t teach you these things in Homemaking 101.

 

Roasted kabocha with cauliflower and fresh fennel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roasted beets, sweet potato, squash, zucchini, carrots

right out of the oven

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vegan chocolate cake with strawberries

 

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Drones

Life Is An Electronic Game

Flying over the U.S. to NY some months ago, I thought of a way to stop wars.

Pilots flying planes,  can’t see any humanity , just as I couldn’t see any life,  except for

some immobile  shapes suggesting what man had tossed down…concrete cities. There was no sign of humanity from so far above. Not even ant-sized signs.

With our high tech, what would happen if faces of the people being bombed appeared on the screen in the cockpit? What if faces of  children had

appeared over Pearl Harbor, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki or  Iraq and  other countries?  Would bombs have been dropped so easily?

… Drop your bomb… This is who you’re killing… Check their faces… Each is a person just like you… Drop your bomb… But beware… the consequence on your mind and heart…

Oh look. We now have  Drones.

Yes, kill as we do with electronic games.

It’s easy, just press a button.

Take conscience and  soul out of man and what do we become?

Drones

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