Sonnet Counterpoint
the final poem in Searching in Circles
by Rose Anna Higashi
Sometimes a circle is a fairy ring,
Sometimes a yin and yang, sometimes a dome
Of healing, sometimes a cyclone of pain.
The seasons cycle with pine wind and chill;
Then manzanita bells ring in the rain,
And blossoms blow in the sun’s golden will
As spring surges up with green once again.
Then geese fly above and our spirits soar
Till mud and shame sink our souls at the core,
So we trudge on or skip or run, swallow
Our pride or glory in the sun. Up, down
And all around, so dizzy as we go
Some dropping trails of breadcrumbs behind,
Some casting their kite in the western wind.
I promised I would be back, and here I am to update what Kathleen and I are up to, and to share the progress of our Afternoon Tea website. As the poem above suggests, many events, both happy and sorrowful, have occurred in my life since my “final” blog last December, in which I shared my favorite Christmas desserts of all time with my readers as a farewell gesture when my co-author, Kathleen and I decided to conclude our careers as bloggers. Since then, I have received several very kind messages from readers telling me that you have missed our monthly blogs with seasonal recipes to help you celebrate every special occasion as time rolls by. I have missed you too, as I always looked forward to finding something old or new to share with you each month. And I am happy to report that our website, myteaplanner.com, has been significantly improved during the past five months, and it is now possible for you to download the entire Tea Book, Sharing Tea: The Road Back to Civilization as a PDF containing dozens of menus and hundreds of recipes for only 10.99. Or you can just read our website, including our blogs, online for pure nostalgic enjoyment.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, my life has been eventful in various ways. My third volume of poetry, Searching in Circles, was published in late December of last year and is available from both Amazon and the publisher’s website: Kelsay Books. Sadly, however, our son David Higashi died the day before my book was published. Karen Kelsay, the founder of Kelsay Books, was kind enough to adjust the dedication from “Dedicated to my son David” to “Dedicated to the memory of my son David.” David died in his home in San Jose, and his death was a surprise to us, as we thought his illness was under control. My sister-in-law, Joyce Higashi, who lives in San Jose, was incredibly helpful in dealing with all the post-death responsibilities that fall upon the family, as David was a life-long bachelor who had no wife or children.
Wayne and I traveled from our home in Honolulu to San Jose to help plan the family gathering the evening before the funeral and also the funeral itself, the reception which followed, and David’s burial with military honors a few days later. When we are grieving, it helps to be with family and the other friends we love. Spending quiet moments surrounded by the beauty of nature is also a consolation. A few days after David’s Funeral, on our drive from San Jose to the California Central Coast Cemetery in Seaside where David was inurned, I wrote this haiku sequence, trying to focus, from dawn to dusk, on the exquisite loveliness of California’s winter landscape.
ONE WINTER DAY ON THE CALIFORNIA COAST
A seven-haiku sequence
Murky gray dawn rays
Melt the frost. A cat walks past
The bare cherry tree.
Lemons cluster in
Chill winter sunlight. Sparrows
Settle in the shade.
Salty clouds hover
Over the dunes at midday.
Pelicans circle.
Afternoon bird song
Twitters through the stillness. Pale Light floats through the pines.
The sun shifts toward the
Sea. A distant bagpipe chants
Past the wild mustard.
Soft fog, live oaks and
Spanish moss surround our son’s
Still burial place.
At Elk Horn Slough, tall
Plovers step past the mud hens
As the last light falls.
I am grateful that we were able to give David a beautiful funeral at St. Leo the Great in San Jose,his parish church, and so happy that all of our family members and many of David’s friends were present. One of David’s friends from the Air Force, Andrew Dalman, flew out from his home in Atlanta for the funeral and served as an usher, and David’s friend Lee Campbell gave the eulogy. Other friends from childhood through adulthood also participated in the funeral service, and the same bagpiper who played at my sister Margaret’s inurnment in 2020 later played at David’s burial. The reception following the funeral was a joyful event with friends and family remembering their best moments with David. It was held at Las Cazuelas Restaurant, an excellent Mexican restaurant just half a block from the church. Although it was winter, we were lucky to have clear and not terribly cold weather for our gathering on the outdoor patio. San Jose, the city where David was born, is a great place for Mexican Food. Let’s not forget that California was once part of Mexico, and David’s hometown is rich in Mexican culture. We hosted a buffet menu of three choices of tacos, rice and beans, spicy sauteed vegetables, guacamole with corn chips, watermelon and cucumber aguas frescas (fresh fruit or vegetable flavored waters) and freshly fried warm churros for dessert. It was a time of grace and healing as we visited with old friends, and family, the “kids” who grew up with David, now in late middle age, and newer friends who valued David’s companionship, especially in the volunteer work he did after he became disabled.
The pink twilight spreads
Upward past the sycamore
In the winter sky.
Food, as well as friendship, is important in every family, even more so when we are grieving. And nothing is more comforting than the food we enjoyed with our family as children. However, neither Kathleen nor I felt able to take on the task of preparing the food for our family as we assembled to remember David. His death was almost as devastating for Kathleen as it was for me, as she and David were born only eleven days apart in the same month of the same year, and the family fondly referred to them as “the twin cousins.” They spent loads of time together as children and remained close as adults. Purchasing the food from a reliable source was our best option, and there was a sense of solidarity and love as both sides of the family gathered at Joyce’s home the evening before the funeral to eat well-prepared sushi and Japanese lunch boxes, called bentos, filled with both chicken and salmon teriyaki, rice, pickles and traditional Japanese vegetables. We also served manju, Japanese pastries made from sticky rice filled with sweetened red beans, purchased from Mitsuwa, a high-quality Japanese market in San Jose. This is the comfort food that David loved to eat with his grandparents and all the Higashi family when he was growing up.
Since David was a bi-cultural person, we wanted to honor both sides of his heritage with Jay Salter, the piper representing the Irish and Scottish side of his ancestry. David’s funeral also concluded with the famous Irish Blessing sung by mezzo-soprano Gina Adams, and a Celtic Cross appears on his memorial plaque at the Veterans Cemetery in Seaside. Every family experiences sorrow at various times, often unexpected. At these times, our family traditions and the memories of our ancestors can be a source of consolation, as can the wider culture in which we and those who went before us have lived our lives.
A rainbow stretches
Across the dark sea at dawn
On Easter Sunday.
When Kathleen and I started writing our tea book, Sharing Tea: The Road Back to Civilization, about twelve years ago, we wanted our book to explore Afternoon Tea customs and ceremonies from cultures throughout the world, and our entire website, myteaplanner.com, including our monthly blogs, is founded on this premise. We welcome you to explore the “Calendar of Tea Parties” and “World of Tea Parties” sections of our Tea Book where the foods and tea practices of both of David’s cultural heritages, Japan and Ireland, are represented along with the wider food cultures of California and Mexico. Maybe you will also find menus and recipes from your own ancestry or discover entire new worlds of culinary traditions.
Kathleen and I are continuing this theme in our current activities, as Kathleen is busy curating and planning the memorial art exhibit for our family patriarch, Dr. Patrick Murdock, who died in 1992, leaving behind scores of paintings depicting his own back yard, his neighborhood in Milpitas, California, and the surrounding hills, valleys and orchards of Santa Clara County. The show will open in the Milpitas City Library Gallery on June 25, and we will be hosting a reception that day to celebrate the show in our father and grandfather’s memory. All of our readers who live in the area are welcome to attend this free event. The exhibit will remain on display through August. We will share additional information with you as the time grows closer.
As our grief process evolves over time, Wayne and I are still enjoying our Afternoon Tea, and we are traveling again. After all the services, ceremonies, receptions and gatherings surrounding David’s death came to an end, Wayne and I were grateful for the kindness of our friends and David’s friends and our family members who supported us with their generous love during this painful time. But we were also exhausted, physically, spiritually and emotionally. We needed rest, silence and isolation surrounded by nature’s purity and serenity. We decided to go someplace we had never been before, a place where the only sounds were the wind, the water, and the birds. We boarded a ship bound for French Polynesia, the island of Tahiti and all the islands along the way. In the days ahead, I hope to share our experiences of healing and grace on this lovely journey to one of the most pristine and beautiful areas of the world among kind and welcoming people who eat clean and natural food from the sea and the fertile rainforests. Meanwhile, in the spirit of international solidarity, I offer you the traditional Irish Blessing that concluded our precious son’s funeral:
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And the rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again.
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
