Writing haiku on a ginko at Overfelt Park

Kiyoko and Patricia writing haiku on a ginko at Overfelt Park
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Seated on a bench, my haiku teacher (left) and my haiku friend write haiku on a beautiful spring afternoon in Overfelt Park in San Jose. Lines of shadow lead to the bench. And, there's California sunshine! Now, my teacher, Kiyoko, is no longer alive, except in those of us who remember her. My friend and I are preparing for an April trip to a haiku conference in Matsuyama, Japan. She will deliver an address on Kiyoko's life and that of her husband, Kiyoshi, who founded our Yuki Yeikei Haiku Society (www.youngleaves.org)
This is a sequence of haiku that I wrote for her while driving home just after she died. . It appeared in Modern Haiku the following year..

HIGH DESERT HAIKU FOR KIYOKO

driving westward
the sun makes it hard to see
—news of her passing

tumbleweed and sage—
white steam rises easily
from holes in the earth

the long straight highway—
so unexpected her death
in this cold season

on bare desert sand
a heart fashioned from black stones
—dust-laden wind

lone desert peak
a single long cloud above it—
winter rain

white alkali flats—
her forty-nine days just begun
at the year’s turning

winter desolation
along the railroad track
a row of tumbleweeds

outside the motel
sun glazes the mountain rim
—departing year

Yule icicle lights—
all I wanted to ask her
sticks in my throat

not wanting to think
this might be heaven’s blessing
—winter mountain

the Pie Jesu
sung in a soprano voice—
winter cloud

her haiku spirit
reaches out across the landscape
depth of winter

314 First Street, Scotia, New York

On the porch with Johanna Rohrmeir
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

On the porch with Johanna Rohrmeir. My friend Johanna's the blonde. Our dolls look like sisters. I'm in the center, baby sister Susan in the playpen. Circa 1940. Photograph taken by Olga, our mother. We moved next door a couple of years later; we used to rent this house. I think Johanna rented the apartment upstairs from the Essmann' s in the house on the other side of this one. I wonder where she went and what became of her.

About vision

View of the Lake
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Today to the library with a screening, with filmmaker John Carlos Frey, of the video Invisible Mexicans of Deer Canyon. In northern San Diego County undocumented workers live in shacks or under tarps in the brush. They get water from an irrigation spigot, hang washed clothing on the bushes to dry and worship at a shrine (later demolished) in the canyon where Catholic volunteers and a priest bring food and analgesics every Sunday. Mostly men, they are hired for gardening, construction and field work. They send money home to Mexico.
From such beginnings, favelas are born. The public health consequences alone mean that such settlements cannot be fostered. I would suggest that "cheap" labor is not so greatly needed that Americans cannot pay the people who perform it a living wage sufficient to pay for shelter and other necessities. One problem is that, if there is a much "cheaper" alternative, employers will not offer adequate pay. Driven by economic stressors, a great number of people are drawn from Mexico and Central America toward this work. This helps to keep the wages low. I also believe that a nation that cannot perform much of its own physical work will create a bloated and weak class of people who will fail in other essential moral ways. It is a problem that needs to be attacked on many fronts, not just by blaming the workers/victims of the system. One thing that still needs to be addressed is overpopulation. In the Seventies, we used to hear about this all the time; now, thinking about the "population bomb" seems out of fashion. We need some strong leaders, determined social will and some absolutely clear thought. Where will either come from????

Nandina in red

Nandina in red
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Looking for art in the midst of life, I pause to ponder the usefulness of this. The Guy Who Does Everything has finished remodeling an understairs closet, which provides us with useful shelves. We will call him Guy, since he is beginning a project of replacing our interior doors with new birch ones. Today we tested stains: Country White, Summer Straw and Country Peach. We have tentatively chosen the Peach, which adds a very slight blush to the birch. I feel silly making these decisions. It almost feels unlike a serious grown-up activity. More like play, maybe with Play Do. Or like fiddling while Rome burns . . .

Street tulips

P1020597 crpp
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Here in California we get pretty flowers growing beside a shop. Other places in this world there is not enough food. Or there may have just been a massacre, or there will be one tomorrow. There is no malaria medicine here, or a disease that is not understood.

I met these tulips on a noon walk in Palo Alto today. The world is not their fault.

Sycamore Group

P1020541up
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

More from the Water District pond. My walk there made me very happy. I wish my burrowing owl still lived here. But times are tough for burrowing owls in Santa Clara County. Too many bulldozed and paved-over places. Not enough just plain ol' funky dirt with second-hand animal burrows in it. I have read about projects that tried to relocate displaced owls to PVC pipe homes in other neighborhoods.. If I were an owl, I don't think I'd like the architecture.
It's Valentine's Day, so today in printmaking class we had a demonstration of viscosity printing--a way to print with two colors of different oilinesses, one of which resists the brayered-over other. The Valentine was in red and yellow, said BE MINE on a heart, and had a lacy trim. A good time was had by all . . .

Water District Ponds

P1020517up
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.

I went for a quick photo walk here the other day, I didn't even have my binoculars, but I used to go here all the time when I was learning to bird. There was a burrowing owl that used to come out of a burrow in a bank during the late afternoon and look at us with his yellow eyes. Standing there on his upright little legs. It was so reliable, I thought there would always be an owl there. Later, when they did all the "improvements" and built the new headquarters building--even before that, actually, the owl was gone. Now the bank is not even there.
It was a beautiful sunny day, with that clear air that comes after rain. I have to say I was somewhat reconciled by the beautiful sameness of the pond, with its coots, varities of ducks, cormorants, gulls and geese. The walk has many new varieties of California native plants with informational signs. I'll be back with my tripod and my 500mm mirror lens.