A young father reminded me to never assume all parents want their children to attend college.
Met a young father with a child, about 6 months old, in a baby carriage. Young child gave me eye contact, smiled and babbled happily. Father agreed he has a very smart baby. When I told him he has to start saving for a college fund, he said as he rocked in rhythm, “Naah, he’s going to be a musician.”
How could I have forgotten what I told the Third Circuit Judge in Hawaii? After reading how he lectured to the juveniles who appeared before him, to raise their grades so they can attend college, I wrote him accusing him of being an elitist. What if some of the young people wanted to be the best waitor, or bus driver? Think of all the people who serve him daily from cashiers to limo drivers. He listened, agreed and thereafter he sent them out to do community service.
There are extremes, of course, like the father of a third grade student who wasn’t concerned about his daughter’s lack of interest in learning “because she’s going to be Miss Hawaii someday. All she needs to do is be a good hula dance.” The mall is a perfect place to be reeducated.
My fifth Wordsworth book in my Wordsworth the Poet series is here. I’ll be in Hawaii for book signings, talks on Wordsworth and other workshops. Stay tuned for dates. Hilo friends, I’ll be at Basically Books on June 24th at 2:00 p.m. I’ll be discussing how I wrote all five Wordsworth books and Wordsworth promised to make an appearance. Please drop by to say hello.
My Oahu events are still in pencil. I will post them when they’re in ink. I’ll be speaking on caregiving and will do a poetry writing workshop along with book signings.
My shopping cart began to squeak with the most irritating metal against metal sound, so high up the scale that mice in ceilings would have fallen dead. This was at Emigh’s. Shoppers began to frown at me. Then one man said aloud, “I like that sound!” I looked at his smiling face and said so all could hear, “And I love irritating people!” The only person who laughed was that male shopper. I squeaked my way to the cashier.
Part II: I should not be allowed out of the house
When the optometrist said, “Since you write children’s books, what do you think of what’s going on with our children?” I used paragraphs to give my views on political adults who are interfering with our children by banning books and controlling learning. I went on how our children won’t be able to think, make the right choices, blah blah blah. I even suggested that all teachers change their last names to Gay. After I got through, she merely said, “Well, there are some bad things out there for our children.” I realized driving home that my vision and hers were charts apart!
Part II: I should not be allowed out of the house
I walk inside the mall for an hour before the shops open . Often, it’s the security guards and myself in the mall. The mall is filled with beautiful plants. One of those plants is selling for $27 or more at Emigh’s or in supermarkets. So, why can’t I just snip off a cutting and start my own pot of greens. Who would miss a five inch cutting? There are two such pots in one corner of the mall. I could easily hide one in my pocket. Then one day a security guard told me how safe the mall is because there are more than 150 cameras in the ceilings. Omg, I thought, I could have been arrested for stealing had I taken just a few inches of a plant. But the thought never left. Two days ago I saw the gardener working with the plants. I asked to see his trash bag for any shoots. When I told him how pricey those potted plants were, he asked which plants did I like? Without a word he took out two potted plants, put them in a plastic bag and said, “Walk with me and show me what other plants you want.” I told him those two pots were enough. “These are heavy. Let me carry these to your car.” I told him I could handle them, he refused the cash I offered him for his lunch and I took them to my car and returned to finish my walk. I saw him today and he said, “ Do you want more plants?” “I’m good, “ I said and thanked him. He saved me from prison, that kind gardener.
Have you ever gone through the belongings of your loved ones after they’re gone?
In 2002, I found in my mother’s bureau, every Mother’s Day card she had received from her children. Included were hand-written letters of thanks sent by her physician. These letters told me my mother had regularly dropped off orchids and papayas from the farm where she worked. I sent these letters back to the doctor and he was totally moved that my mother had saved each one. She lost to Alzheimer’s but I found her stories in her belongings.
Allow me to share a poem I wrote after observing two people exchange phone numbers. They deftly added numbers to their smart phones. What will we have after electronic devices are deleted? I apologize for Blog not printing my poems with stanzas.
Address Books and Match Book Covers
When I am dead, my dearest,
Will you draw a Sharpie marker
Through my name, write Dead in bold caps
Or simply press Delete
To eradicate me forever?
Or will you preserve my name under K
And years from now…
On a cold wintry afternoon when friends
Have deserted you and boredom sets in,
You flip through your address book and pause at K .
Under the slow – changing day into night, my name appears.
You say my name and soon stories appear and you smile and even chuckle
When there was a me and a you.
Perhaps memories will take you to a shoe box labeled FHK
In a spider-webbed corner of the garage.
You find old faded match covers. Match covers?
Yes, match covers. You flip one open and see faded numbers.
Is it a hurriedly written phone number of a handsome stranger I once met
In a coffee shop or in a bar? Did I call that number and did a story begin?
Should you play sleuth and call that number? He must be long gone by now.
Are there match covers in other garages?
A shoe box of mysteries keep you awake until dawn.
I walk inside the mall before the shops open and exchange “Good Morning” with a few regular walkers.Twice last week, when I said “Good Morning” to two young adults, they looked stunned and said, “Oh, okay.” They reminded me of a young man who sat next to me on a flight to Hawai’i.
Raised by Wolves
A young man buckles himself next to me,
Connected to wires and earbuds.
He grunts to my Hello without meeting my eyes.
Soon we are flying over the Pacific
Nary a word between our proximity.
An hour into flight, breakfast trays appear.
He leans over his mushroom cheese crepes,
Stabs his fork into one, lifts the crepe to his mouth,
Takes a bite and drops the rest of the crepe to his plate.
He was raised by wolves, this much I know.
He picks up a piece of cantaloupe with his fingers
Takes a bite, moves his face over his tray and drops
The size too large for a bite back to his plate.
His utensils, ignored like the napkin on his tray.
My teacher mode kicks in.
Learn by observing, child raised by wolves.
Learn by observing.
Miss Manners and Emily Post at his service
I use each silverware and my napkin, too.
Attempt again for conversation over breakfast.
“Let me guess,” I begin.
No, No, I didn’t ask,” Were you raised by wolves?”
Miss Manners was still around.
“You’re a college student returning home for summer break.”
He flashes his first smile. He finished his junior year in college,
The weeds have been crying for a weeder for weeks.
Still frozen in my winter lazy bones, I thought surely I can find a way to get out of this…a little boy came to mind.
When I was a student in College of Educ, the professor demonstrated “how to read a story to 4 year olds.” Before she could begin, a little boy asked, “Teacher, why is your hair all white?”
Before she could respond, another boy turned toward the little boy and said, “Her hair not grey, her hair silver.”
So I took off my garden gloves and walked away, “Dem weeds not weeds, dem weeds flowers.”
I wrote this poem after reading Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.
Oh America
Our living Democracy.
First it was the black
Whose color was wrong.
Then the Japanese whose faces
Wore the enemy’s.
After 9/11, it was the Moslems.
All Asians after Covid-19
Since we all look alike.
Oh America,
Hear this, before you etch
Another on your list:
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
At Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento I saw this sign in the showcase of a clothes shop that sold other items: Banned books sold here. There was a small display of banned books. I stood and had to fight my tears. I plan to donate other banned books to the shop to support their efforts.
Thank you, Mrs. Ige, for reading the first book in my series of Wordsworth the Poet who resolves human problems through his poetry. What an honor to Wordsworth and myself.
Wordsworth the Musical, based on my first two Children’s books is presented here in film and in Hawaiian with subtitles. The English version will be presented live on stage in the fall for the public and all school students, K-5th.
Am having problems with this blog…you will need to navigate on the site till you get to Wordsworth to see the musical play.
I was privileged to write the Foreword to this novel by Dan Shanahan. Please check this out on Amazon.
Foreword
End of Summer captures the essence of what happened after Pearl Harbor:
Under the rising sun,
the enemy came,
wearing my face.
End of Summer returned me, not to the fact that we were treated like the enemy, but to three basic Japanese teachings I grew up with : Shikata ga nai ( it can’t be helped, it is what it is), Gaman ( to endure the unbearable with patience and dignity) and Bachi ( Divine punishment or Karma)
Two cultures meet on American soil, immigrants from Germany and Japan, to live the American dream.As the story unfolds, a piece of farmland, taken from the Japanese when they are sent to an internment camp, becomes more than property – and the consequence of a decision made by both the German and Japanese extend into their future generations.
The story is told behind a silk fan, the quiet and dignified undercurrents and loud silences, half concealed, become a pair of threads from both cultures that weave together throughout the story. As with others of Dan Shanahan’s works, there is that large twisting gasp at the end . . . so the reader is advised not to skip to the ending. You need to experience this gasp exactly where it appears. The beautiful use of language and the well-developed characters from two cultures will endure long after you read the last word.
Frances H Kakugawa
Author of Echoes of Kapoho and Dangerous Woman: Poetry for the Ageless
Still unable to post poetry in poetic stanza….grrrrrr…..
Under the rising sun
The enemy came
Wearing my face.
After Pearl Harbor, I became the enemy
After 9/11, another enemy.
After Covid-19, another Asian enemy.
Again, another enemy who wears Putin’s face.
Cow 1 is not Cow 2.*
Putin brutalizes Ukraine
Your Russian neighbor is not Putin.
Careful, careful, Cow 1 is not Cow 2.
My ancestors bombed Pearl Harbor,
I became Cow 1. Yet, Cow 1 is not cow 2.
Such a simple, uncomplicated rule.
* Semanticist S.I. Hayakawa wrote this on the blackboard when I wasa young student at his feet. He explained: You are driving along and see a cow. Driving along the road, you see another cow. That cow is not the first cow you saw.
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