I was going through some old things today, a couple of Chinese dishes, and some pictures, and some poems.  They aren't connected in any way but in their being the stuff that prompts my memories... and the memories aren't really connected in any way that makes sense... but here they are connected in this BLOG post. The Chinese plates are from the time when we lived in Asia and I couldn't resist buying a plate that someone told me was three or four hundred years old... and I couldn't resist thinking of timelessness when I came across a photograph of my two children... I think the photograph is from 1965 when I was teaching at Yuba City High School... a few years before we moved to Singapore...

And I opened the book of poems and found one that I wrote in August, 1990 when I was in Tokyo visiting with my friend Takashi Hara.  I like it because it reminds me of two people I like remembering.

Tokyo, Wednesday, August 8, 1990

Mr. Hara Reminds Me of Grandma Miles

It’s not often that I have reason to think of my Grandmother,

But always on the occasions when I am with Takashi Hara

I see her all plump and smiling, standing in a doorway

Or walking in her garden with hollyhocks all around

And that wonderful smell of roses,

And it’s all because of the way he keeps a handkerchief

Clutched tightly in his left hand with a little white showing

That I remember her because she did that, too,

Like the time she took a quarter out of the handkerchief

And looked directly into my twelve-year-old eyes

And said, LutherJerral, buy yourself some socks.

I don’t know why she said socks, but she did,

And I’ll never forget her for it

Because she didn’t give the other kids a quarter,

Which may not mean anything,

But it causes me to remember her even in Tokyo

When Mr. Hara rolls that white handkerchief around in his hand,Grinning as he looks at me and hands me yet another gift…

A belt, practical like a pair of socks.