I’m mad …someone cut and stole my sunflowers in the front garden. I grew them from seeds so they meant a lot. One summer I didn’t do sunflowers after a neighbor complained that they were too high and blocked her view as she drove her car out of her garage. Even strangers dropped by to ask, “Where’s your sunflowers this year?”  So majority ruled and the sunflowers have been back. ..until they were stolen two days ago. So birds, squirrels and humans, I’m sorry that one dishonest, cowardly thief is depriving us of  sun flowers this summer.

Two Springs ago, the Tulip Thief cut and stole my red tulips. I left a note on the fence to the thief, scolding her/him for depriving others of enjoying the tulips.

Grrrrrr

Giving keynote address on Dignity in Aging: A Caregiver’s Voice

Reading my “A Feather Boa and a Toothbrush” poem.

Talking poetry writing

Keiro Health Care: Thank you for inviting me to be part of this conference

Brandon Masashige Leong, Community Resources Mgr

Kanako Kusano, Health Promotion Specialist

Shawn Miyake, CEO:President

A writer’s dream…a line of people waiting to purchase books…

Best response from audience came from an attorney: I’m going to send all my troubled clients to a poet. You do better than attorneys.

Breaking News: Today, the President sent 10,000 poets to Syria. Immediately, riot police and demonstrators  turned in their guns for pens.

Breaking News:  All basic training in the military will be led  by the newly appointed Poet Laureate of each military branch.

Breaking News: Poetry Reading in Taksim Square scheduled for tonight in Istanbul.

Breaking News: Breaking News: Breaking News:

June 8th: Will give keynote address and a poetry writing workshop at:

                  Genki Conference: A free conference supporting caregivers at: Gardena Baptist Church

                 1630 W 158th St, Gardena, CA

June 22: Will speak on poetry and caregiving at the forum titled, “Memories of the Way We Were”

                 to be held  on June 22, 2013 from 2:30-6:30PM at the Institute For Genetic Medicine Art Gallery, Keck

                 School of Medicine, University of Southern California.

                 This is under the umbrella of the current art exhibit theme of “Aging People, Aging Planet”

Have you ever made a split second decision and later felt sooo good about it?
Last night we launched our anthology book by NCPA ( yes, I have a piece in it called Junkyard for Writers)
It was at this Bar and Grill in El Dorado Hills.

I was sitting at a table when an elderly  woman brought her copy to me:
She: Will you sign my book?
Me: I’ll be honored to.
She smiled at me, standing there, her eyes looking straight into mine.

About fifteen minutes later she brought her book to me:

She: Will you sign my book for me?
Me: I’ll be happy to.
I took her book with my signature and message already inked in. I lifted the cover of the
book so she couldn’t see me write and I  moved my pen, pretending to write in her book. I returned her
copy to her and she was so pleased.

She stood there, smiling, her eyes looking into mine.  I asked her to tell me how she spent her leisure time and she described all her fruit trees.

I remember seeing that look so many times in my classrooms. Students connecting looks with me,unable to disguise the genuine pleasure they were feeling over a discovery they may have made about themselves, their teacher or about learning.

That woman was the highlight of my evening because without knowing, she had tested me on how to honor one another and I  passed the test during that split second I didn’t say, “But I’ve already signed your book.”
Sometimes we do something extraordinary with the simplest of acts, don’t we, by simply remembering to dignify another human being.

I met a Korean war veteran when I was in high school and until today, because of the stories he told

me, whenever I take a shower during the winter months, I think of Fred  and all the soldiers who served in the Korean War.

Do not mention the war, I was warned by his friend. He’s still suffering. One night we were camping at the beach in Kapoho and perhaps it was the ocean, the night breeze and bottles of beer that he began to talk about the war. I remember this particular story:

It was so cold, walking in the icy storm in Korea, he couldn’t even light a cigarette. His fingers were frozen, he couldn’t hold a cigarette. Ice formed on his face, and he was so cold, so cold he cried without tears.

That image never left and I weep tears for Fred and his fellow soldiers and feel such gratitude whenever I’m under a hot shower, feeling the warmth on my face and the rest of my body. I feel such gratitude that I’m not in the cold Korean war, so frozen, my eyelashes have become ice.

I heard that story in the 50’s and I still remember. And I still weep.

I attended the  funeral services of Patrick whose wife was in my writing support group for caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s diseases. Patrick was buried at Punchbowl Cemetery in Hawaii  where he was given full military honors. I wrote this poem for him:

A Salute to Patrick at Punchbowl Cemetery

The soldiers stood cemented to the grassy ground
Like statues, while Buddhist sutras filled the air.
Movement would dishonor the man who once stood
In his uniform, like his comrades today.

The three-gun salute, the wailing taps,
The precision of the folding of the flag,
A salute purified by white gloves
For the presentation of the symbolic flag.

Each step of ultimate precision, a tribute to dignity,
Honor and respect for the fallen soldier,
From the country whom he had served
With love, dignity and honor.

Whatever Alzheimer’s had stolen from him,
All was returned to him today.
Whatever memories, forgotten,
The country that he loved, remembered.

A final rest in peace.

(from Mosaic Moon by Frances Kakugawa
Sets’ poems are also included in Mosaic Moon.)

The Purple Place
363 Green Valley Road, El Dorado Hills, California 95762

NCPA: Northern CA Publishers & Authors is launching this book on May 28, Tuesday night at 6 p.m.

at The Purple Place. Please join the authors and poets whose stories and poems appear in this anthology. Yes, I have a piece

titled: Junkyard for Writers. If you can’t  join us for an autographed book, they are available at:

If you are not an adult, you will need parental permission to read this about the Cicada who

lives the life of Haiku and returns every 17 years to have their long awaited sexual needs met.

Even science can’t explain how  cicadas keeps track of their time underground, but they do. They wait

17 years underground before surfacing for four to six weeks to find a mate, lay their eggs and then die.

Eggs are tunneled underground and during the 17th year, repeat the cycle of their parents.

My friend John sent this photo along with his haiku. So if this cicada has had his needs met, his offspring will emerge in 2030.

Haiku File  – Honoring and Remembering the Seventeen Year Cicadas – May, 2013

   An octave above

  Storm song on a coral reef

  Cicadas singing  

   Spirit, faith and hope

   A seventeen year trial

   The Cicadas live!

  How long has it been

  Since the old White Oak was cut?

  Cicadas emerge.

 Exoskeletons

 In the middle of the lawn

   Oaks once grew nearby.

  Take heart newborn fawns

 Your shaky gait will improve

   When Cicadas fly.

   Cicada music

   I wish the pterodactyls

   Left a concert, too.

   Nature’s own fine script

  Is there for us all to note.

  Can you read her text?

   Oberammergau?

   Where did that template come from?

   Cicadas, of course!

                         J. Ball, 5/2013

The setting was perfect, hearing Blake and Whitman,  over cream cheese and watercress on French bread and couscous salad, lemonade and a bottle of wine that stayed corked. Ah April, thou art Poetry Month! We also read our own poems.