Kiyoshi smiles

Kiyoshi smiles
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This is Kiyoshi Tokutomi,who founded my haiku society in 1975. He died in the 1980's. On the first anniversary of his death his wife, Kiyoko, planned a memorial service. Because he loved music and children, she arranged for many musical children to perform a recital in his memory.
Today, on XM Radio (I love XM Radio, but that's another post!) they played a Schubert Impromptu, the one that begins suddenly going down in pitch, like a waterfall. On the day of the memorial recital, the tiniest child, a girl of perhapa six years of age, with a waterfall of straight black hair held back from her face by a clip, marched up to the piano and attacked the waterfall of notes with a crisp professional competence. All the children played very competently, but she was spectacular, and so tiny. I have never forgotten that time, and that music, and I am always pleased to encounter that Schubert again. We named our annual haiku contest after Kiyoshi.