My Angel

I'm supposed to be packing the car, and stopped for a moment of play . . .

It's duckling time!

Lovely haiku reading and events at the Teahouse in San Jose's Japanese Friendship Garden. Highlights were the many ducklings, of course, and the guided tour of the koi nursery tanks, where they are growing some koi that that hope to restore to the pond after the new filtration system is installed. It was Penny, a genuine Koi Ranger who took us on a tour.
I was trying out a new camera and it made me quite happy with its 12x zoom. This is the full frame, the ducklings can be seen in all their shaprt cuteness and I like the way the little touches of vegetation are in two corners.
We also had a haiku ginko, or garden walk, and a mighty drum session with two drummers from the group Maiko Drum. They were pretty awesome and made that old teahouse rattle!
More pictures of this great day here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/junehymas/sets/72157623896989809/show/

Music I love; people I love

Tonight on satellite radio, Robert Aubry Davis played Brahms' German Requiem in a recording conducted by Robert Shaw. Robert Aubry Davis (I always call him by his full name since I fell in love with his voice and his brilliant and funny comments on the old Vox channel on XM Radio.) This delightful channel which played all sorts of music for the human voice from Monteverdi to Verdi and all sorts of masses and plainchants, leider and art songs of all descriptions is no more: a victim of the folding together of the two satellite radio companies. The replacement is the Metropolitan Opera channel on Sirius-XM, which plays ONLY music from the Met, so mostly opera, and many dull old recordings of the played-out few popular operas. But (perhaps due to his large and noisy fan base) R.A.D. soldiers on as a host on the Symphony Hall channel and is as wonderful and well-informed as ever. He searches out rare recordings, and the best recordings, and plans programs for the centennials, tri-centennials and all sorts of anniversaries for musicians. He sends out a weekly email newsletter so we can be sure to catch the things we especially want to hear. And he is a person I love.
In the early 1980s, I sang with the Gavilan College Concert Choir under the direction of Ronald Graham. Preparation for our concerts created the most outstanding musical experiences of my life. And Ron is a person I love, who made a great difference in my life through his teaching. Toward the end of this golden era, we sang the Brahms, or at least as much of it as we could credibly prepare in one semester. Once you have learned such music, it stays with you forever.
In his introduction, Robert Aubry Davis talked about the writing of the this work, and its relation to the deaths of Brahms' mother and the death of his friend and mentor, Robert Schumann. There is a little bit about this in Wikipedia.
As the music began to play, I slowed and then stopped my Kindle-reading of They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell, a beloved author. As I listened, the music entered my chest just above my heart and swelled, swelled, swelled and settled there.
So, there they are, three beloved art-guys.
And above, a rose (planted by my husband, another beloved fellow) after rain. This is one of the first dozen taken with my new camera, a 12 megapixel beauty with a fast sharp lens and a 12x zoom. Might turn out to be the perfect camera.

Might turn out to be a perfect life.

This is the Gamble Gardens in Palo Alto, right adjacent to a main road. I think the owner left it for public use. The plant I liked the best (and there were many spectacular choices) was borage, with its fuzzy stems. It must seed itself, because it was all over the garden. I decided to try to get some for my own garden. This is a classic garden in classic late spring.

His Golden Slippers

IMG_2960crp
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Here's a snowy egret from the Palo Alto Baylands yesterday. I had the most divine time! Things have changed a lot since I went on so many birdwalks here 20 years ago. It is still wild, weedy and beautiful, with the changing water levels, amazing birds, weeds and clouds.
I have another place I often go to now, closer to my home. I wrote a poem about it and my poem was recently chosen as one of 30 poems on Santa Clara County (for the thirty days in National Poetry Month) to be posted--one each day--during April. My poem went up a couple of days ago and you can see it here.

I also made a panorama by blending 12 vertical shots. Here it is. Wish you could have come. Tomorrow, the garden I also visited Tuesday.

You'll have to park in the Dirt Lot

You'll have to park in the Dirt Lot
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I went to a great poetry reading today by Willis and Tony Barnstone. It was held upstairs in the Firehouse at San Jose's History Park and sponsored by the San Jose Poetry Center and by the local Jacaranda Press. It's a baseball Saturday (the stadium is across the street) and the parking lots were full when I got there. But I was thrilled to get the senior discount $2, instead of the baseball day $6, and to actually get a spot. The reflections in the puddle in the dirt lot were really quite pretty, I thought, and the orange fencing punched up the color quotient. It took me a while to walk from there, but the reading hadn't started yet when I arrived. Nice cookies, Sun Chips and an odd assortment of orange pop, gingerale and juice.
My only previous knowledge of the name Barnstone was of the children's author, Aliki (Barnstone,) whose children's books were published under Aliki, as a single name. But at the library, we knew better and always added the typed label: Barnstone and shelved them under B. I guess she's the mom, but I didn't ask, but she also does adult stuff and translations like the guys I heard today and I read in Wikipedia, that his parents altered his name, and it is unusual. I always liked her books and I wanted to ask about her, but restrained myself. There is much more to tell, and I'll tell it in the next post.
Pictures of the Barnstones reading and the History Park here.

Wildflowers at Blue Oak Ranch

The spring wildflower walk of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society was held this afternoon at the Blue Oak Ranch in the foothills above San Jose. I don't know the name of these little beauties, yet, but will let you know when I do. Highlights coming soon. More pictures here.