VISIT

Keiko Yurugi and I visited Edith Shiffert last Friday (6/22) - I looked for H’s postcard but couldn’t find it. Who knows what happened to it? Edith forgets very easily! She told us her mother once said, “Could you be a reincarnation of Elizabeth Barret Browning?”
We sat by a picture window looking out at a rice paddy and low wooded mountains as the afternoon waned - amazing numbers of swallows came whizzing by, down and up!
Here are two poems by Keiko from that visit.
green brook　　　　　　　　 (on the roadside to the hospital)
running swiftly through grasses‐
　　　a grey heron waits 　　 (goisagi)

halolike
her hair’s white silk strands
recalling her parents’ word
“Keep walking” 　　　　　　　　　　(encouraging)

And by me (Jane),
sugi stern and tall (cedars)
but flowering trees too
where the stream
passes her hospital

from stilly clearness
to white foam the river runs‐
her poems remain

Someone in my hometown of Grinnell, Iowa, searching (“googling”) for me found The Hotspot! Amazing. Thank you very much indeed for all your help with Hailstones web presence (blog is such an ugly word).
(Submitted by Jane Wieman)