Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Hummingbird hovers
over starflower bush
outside of my window.

"Hummingbird over Starflower Bush" Backyard garden in Mountain View

"Hummingbird Detail" (11:32 am, December 15, 2013)

"Starflower Bush" Backyard garden in Mountain View

My Mountain View apartment has a backyard garden with tall palm trees, rose bushes, and bird of paradise plants. On Sunday, December 15, 2013, a hummingbird hovered over a large potted flower bush outside my window. It drank nectar from the flowers flitting from one to the next for a minute. I was on the phone and missed taking a photo that was later created on Photoshop. On later inspection, I noticed the flowers were shaped like 5-petal stars (1-8-2014). Searching Google images of "starflower bush", the closest resemblance is a yellow New Zealand Star Flower. Jasmine Flower also has 5-star petals but the leaves don't match. Photo Sources: Hummingbird (photography-on-the-net); "Hummingbird over Starflower Bush" (wisdomportal.com); "Starflower Bush" (wisdomportal.com)

Messages from everywhere
light up my backyard—
this bird sings to me

people far away share
the air and clouds around
us and wild wind brings

Naomi Shihab Nye "Never Lost" Reading at Stanford (November 12, 2013, 7:30-9:30 pm) Photograph © Peter Y. Chou

Words in above haikus were borrowed from Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Messages from Everywhere" from A Maze Me (p. 95)—         Messages from Everywhere         light up our backyard.         A bird that flew five thousand miles         is trilling six bright notes.         This bird flew over mountains and valleys         and tiny dolls and pencils         of children I will never see.         Because this bird is singing to me,         I belong to the wide wind,         the people far away who share         the air and the clouds.         Together we are looking up         into all we do not own         and we are listening. Photo Source: Naomi Shihab Nye (wisdomportal.com)

a surprise sharing— streaks of firebird cloud photos from a Swiss stranger Gabriel Spinel's December 15 email "P'eng Bird Cloud" from Switzerland Gabriel Spinel's December 15 email "Phoenix Cloud" from Switzerland Checking my emails at Los Altos Library (December 15, 4 pm), found 30 spam emails at wisdomportal.com that were promptly purged. Didn't trash "Clouds from an amateur" email and was surprised to see some spectacular Swiss cloud photos. He introduced himself as Gabriel Spinel, a photo amateur— "Yesterday I took some pictures with very amazing lines, shapes and colors. Wish you like those." The 24 photos he shared: streaks of cirrus clouds, snow capped mountains, bird soaring in sky, sunsets, and a crescent moon. I appreciated especially the cloud photos, and liked his 3rd photo that resembled the giant mythological Chinese bird P'eng whose wings span a thousand miles. I also liked his 8th photo that looks like a Phoenix, the bird of fire that rises from the ashes returning every 500 years to Egypt. Gabriel's photos reminded me of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Messages from Everywhere"— "people far away who share / the air and the clouds. / Together we are looking up / into all we do not own / and we are listening." Photo Sources: "F'eng Bird" Cloud ( Gabriel Spinel); "Phoenix" Cloud (Gabriel Spinel) thanking for my web page of cloud photos that brought memories of his childhood. Sketch of "Fish Cloud" Los Altos Hills (10-23-2009) School of Fish Clouds Mountain View (10-24-2009) Shark Cloud Mountain View (10-25-2009) More than the wonderful photos that Gabriel shared with me, is his heart-warming message: "Looking for more experience photographers on the internet, I found your page, and looking at your pictures those brought me memories when been a boy, I enjoyed to lay facing the sky and do competitions, with other brother and sisters or friends, to discover the most fantastic images on the clouds. When I got those memories back, I just got the feeling to tell you, thanks." Photo Sources: "Fish Cloud Sketch", "School of Fish Clouds", "Shark Cloud" (wisdomportal.com) Now Nye's gazelles gallops across the grassy plains with winds of grace. Naomi Shihab Nye's 19 Varieties of Gazelle Naomi Shihab Nye's 19 Varieties of Gazelle was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award, Young People's Literature. The poems in this book explore the lives of people in the Middle East, in the light of the September 11, 2001 attacks (Book Reviews: E. M. Selinger, Robert Peake, Naomi). A gash of movement, a spring of flight... For years the Arab poets used "gazelle" to signify grace, but when faced with a meadow of leaping gazelle there were no words... Does a gazelle have a path? Is the whole air the path of the gazelle? Leaping Gazelles Naomi Shihab Nye's 19 Varieties of Gazelle Poem: "19 Varieties of Gazelle" (pp. 87-88); Photos: 19 Varieties of Gazelle (harpercollins); Leaping Gazelles (free-desktop-backgrounds.net) Last poem in A Maze Me: "My mind is always open. I don't think there's even a door." Naomi Shihab Nye's A Maze Me (2005) Thoughts That Came in Floating— 1 The land waits for rain to write on it. Pool of birdseed, ring around the moon. Night, that beautiful dark broom, sweeps the day away. 4 My mind is always open. I don't think there's even a door. Photo Sources: A Maze Me (harpercollins.com); "Open Mind" (www.pinterest.com/janfufu/) Jan-Peter Semmel's "Open Mind" While typing the last page of A Maze Me: Poems for Girls (p. 115), I noticed the triple line spacings between lines. Nye is depicting visually her spacious open mind on the page for readers. Seeing "4" on top of "My mind", made me realize that this is section 4 of Nye's poem "Thoughts That Came in Floating—" on page 113. The line "Pool of birdseed, ring around the moon" in Section 1, forebode my experience on December 15— seeing a hummingbird at 11:32 am and a moon halo at 11:32 pm. Later Bill Taylor plays "Goodnight Sweetheart" at the Stanford Theatre. Stanford Theatre Marquee: Duck Soup & The Miracle of Morgan's Creek Bill Taylor at Wurlitzer Stanford Theatre, Palo Alto Duck Soup Poster of Marx Brothers Harpo Marx on Horse in Duck Soup (1933) On December 15, I went to Palo Alto's Stanford Theatre and saw Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) (7:30-9:10 pm) and Leo McCarey's Duck Soup (1933) starring the Marx Brothers (9:20-10:29 pm). During the intermission (9:10-9:20 pm), Bill Taylor played the Wurlitzer organ— "Good Night Sweetheart" which was seen & heard later in Duck Soup as Harpo Marx rode his horse around town like Paul Revere shouting "The war is coming!" The popular song "Good Night Sweetheart" was written by the British song-writing team of Ray Noble, Jimmy Campbell, and Reg Connelly. It was recorded in 1931, and used in Duck Soup (1933) during Harpo Marx's horseride. The following week, on December 20, 2013, 7:30-9:00 pm, at Stanford Theatre, I saw Preston Sturges's "The Palm Beach Story" (1942). Here Rudy Vallée croons tenderly "Good Night Sweetheart" under Claudette Colbert's windows, trying to win her love. Photo sources: Stanford Theatre Marquee (wisdomportal.com); Bill Taylor at Wurlitzer (stanfordtheatre.org); Duck Soup Poster (impawards.com); Harpo Marx on Horse (kinem.org) High above towering palm trees a giant lunar halo welcomes me home. Moon Halo (October 29, 2012) by Randy Miller (Anderson, Indiana) Lunar Halo over Palm Trees above my apartment (11:32 pm, 12-15-2013) "Ghost Comet" over Full Moon (11:32 pm) Nye: "dark broom, sweeps the day away" I took the 10:51 pm Bus #22 from the Palo Alto Train Depot home. When walking in the backyard garden, I noticed a giant lunar halo over palm trees above my apartment. After putting away my backpack, I got my camera and took some photos of this moon halo, the time was 11:32 pm. Exactly twelve hours have elapsed since the morning's hummingbird photo at 11:32 am. Moon halo occurs because of refraction in tiny hexagonal ice crystals in the air. My night photo was too dark, and needed brightening in Photoshop so the palm trees became visible. However the halo was too faint. So a circle was drawn in Photoshop and given stroke of a pixel and blurred to reduce the sharp circle outline and simulate the lunar halo seen that night. The photo taken after "Lunar Halo over Palm Trees" showed a strange "Ghost Comet" over Full Moon (11:32 pm) like a "broom of light" sweeping in the dark. It reflects the image of Naomi Shihab Nye's "Night, that beautiful dark broom, / sweeps the day away." that followed her previous line "ring around the moon". The two poems of Nye— "Messages from Everywhere" and "Thoughts That Came in Floating—" in A Maze Me are truly amazing— they foreshadowed the events of December 15 that inspired this poem. Photo source: Moon Halo (earthsky.org); Lunar halo (wisdomportal.com) — Peter Y. Chou     Mountain View, 1-17-2014 | Top of Page | Blossoming Blessings | Poems 2013 | Poems 2012 | Poems 2011 | Poems 2010 | | Haikus 2013 | Haikus 2012 | Haikus 2011 | Platonic Lambda | CPITS | Books | A-Z Portals | Home | © Peter Y. Chou, Wisdom Portal P.O. Box 390707, Mountain View, CA 94039 email: (1-17-2014)