This haiku is about that everyday moment when you are waiting to cross a busy street, and you see a very old couple standing in front of you, and you happen to notice they are holding hands, clasping each other’s fingers, like they are holding on for life, or for eternal love. Like they’re on their first date, although they are old _ white hair, frail, pale skin, barely standing, leaning against each other. All you can feel is sheer envy: That they have whatever it is that they have, all the years together, and, most of all, they have each other.
Swimming or flying
Mourning alone will end soon
Love birds mate for life
If you are a bird watcher, even a casual amateurish one like me, you know many of them not only migrate in flocks, like a flight version of human society, but they are also almost always couples. If you ever see a bird alone, look around and find his/her partner nearby. I enjoy doing this. I find it consoling each time.
Always an honor, even if you just did your very small part, to be part of the Best of AP Honorable Mention awarded in February 2026, for this AP Story about an explosion at U.S. Steel.
My AP Story Jan. 2, 2026 about the emperor and his family greeting well-wishers at the palace for New Year’s.
AP Photo by Fatima Shbair.
I usually start the New Year by covering a countdown event for our roundup story. I send a bunch of material but, by the end of the global day, it becomes one line, if even that. It’s a great way to start out the new year as a reporter, a humbling but comforting reminder that we just do our jobs. I am a Contributor to this AP Story Jan. 1, 2026.
HOKUBEI MAINICHI the Japanese American newspaper where it all began
Amazing to chance upon the digital archives of Hokubei Mainichi, a true community newspaper, as all journalism should be, and found stories I did, notices about my poetry readings, the birth announcement of our son and a column the editor then Howard Imazeki gave me to muse on motherhood. And today I see that he continued to publish my stories sent as AP reports from Japan. That made me cry. Thanks to journalism.
My longtime poet friend Alan Ota found this poem of mine from some time back. He thinks it is moving and might use it in his next book. I didn’t even remember having written this poem. It sounds like something I would write. I still like this poem.
My poetry an honorable mention in “The Terrible Fives”
This isn’t coming out until November 2026, but I am thrilled to get an honorable mention in “The Terrible Fives,” the upcoming book by Ishmael Reed, my longtime mentor since my Berkeley days.
My teacher made this vase himself. The point of this ikebana is to have the elements cascade downward, and protrude forward, creating a flow of life in the leaves, stems and flowers that’s a statement, from top right to left downward, in a softly swinging angle.
Below is another, perhaps better, shot of the Ikebana, created May 13, 2026. And the link to My Ikenobo Ikebana No. 12 with a link to previous Ikebana that has more such links, all the way to My Ikenobo Ikebana No. 1 May 21, 2025. And so it’s been just about a year now.
This piece came about as part of the Poetry Challenge, a group in Tokyo that shares work on a given theme. The theme was “Dreamtime.” I’m sharing it here because it turned out nicely, if I may say so, with the title “It Is OK.” That’s what a family member who used AI to make it into a song called it:
A song about love with Words written by Yuri Kageyama and Music and song by Ryu Miho
what do you think?
it’s a trick question
what do you think?
with a right answer
what do you think?
not at all open-ended
what do you think?
as it might seem
what do you think?
it’s asking do you really love me?
do you truly understand?
what do you think?
the answer isn’t fixed
just a right answer, and a wrong
what do you think?
i love you so much
what do you think?
and long after we’re all gone
what do you think?
that big question is still there
what do you think?
what do you think?
Lovers are always asking each other: “What do you think?” and getting upset if their lover doesn’t quite get it, or answers he or she felt something about an artwork or a film they just saw together in a different way from what you’re feeling, or thought the feeling should be, or whatever. It’s really a fruitless game, but it’s one all lovers play, all the time, throughout history, wherever they are, any nation, any culture. Because ultimately you’re just asking: Do you love me? And there is no right answer or a wrong one. Just that moment you share, you are both here, alive but together on this little beautiful planet, lost in the cosmos, and we never know what to think anyway.
And this version as arranged and performed by Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi.
We presented “What Do You Think” at a Tokyo bar together May 3, 2026. A man came up and told us his wife always asks him that, too, and he never has the right answer so he’s given up. And so: What do you think?
Gordy with Duke in San Francisco 1979. Photo by Bob Hsiang.
I now know it’s all the same thing, love and music. Or the poem, flower arrangement or any other pursuit. It’s about connecting with all that went before you, in all their trials and tribulations, everything. And love is a part of that, your connecting with that person you love. Maybe your friend, your mother, your partner for life. It might get complicated if you are trying to connect with the past, while at the same time trying to connect with that individual, who in turn may also be connecting with the musical or theatrical greats who went before him or her. But, hey, it’s all the same thing. It is how you live and how you choose to connect. And it is definitely a lifelong effort. Worth every second. Filling you with joy and meaning about having known those special connections, and that special person. So do not mourn. Just rejoice. Keep playing, writing, creating and loving.
