 Hello, everyone. Nice to see you here. I'd like to thank Jack, Byron, Judy, the friends of San Francisco Public Library for their continuing efforts for our community. I recently saw a very moving and inspirational film called Red Poet. It's about Jack Hirschman's wonderful life as a poetry. If you haven't seen it, you can catch it on YouTube. Please enjoy Red Poet. My piece is about my visit to Japan last November. Coming home, viewed through the window of a blood train heading south, Mount Fuji half hidden, the snow covered peak piercing the clouds. The Pacific coastal mountains of my hometown, Shizuoka, around and gentle, bamboo forest undulating in green waves. At the cemetery, in back of an old temple, stood a familiar tombstone. I poured spring water over my ancestors, offered yellow chrysanthemums, and burned incense in prayer. He'd get lost walking away from home, would fall on the street. A few times would be taken by ambulance to a hospital. My siblings warned me of my big brother's Alzheimer's. He may not recognize you. Three years before when I saw him last at our niece's wedding, he seemed hearty and robust at 73. Two months later, his wife died unexpectedly of a heart attack. I approached big brother's door through the bonsai garden of pine and plum trees. Once his pride and joy now overgrown with dry tall grass. Oh, Toshi, he said, standing at the doorway, uncertain. Thin and feeble, the loss of weight startling. Slowly, he seated himself at the kitchen table. From the heap of food packages, pill bottles, yellowing newspapers, and sundries, he pushed forward two mandarin oranges. Eat. Do you want tea? No, that's OK, I said, staring at the huge bandage on his forehead and his food-stained beige sweater. He pointed to a bundle of cars hung on the wall, large letters describing his daily schedule. Someone's coming to take me to the center today. Many old people there talking funny, some screaming. You think they are joking, but they are serious. I listened to them. He said, always a quiet man. He was unusually talkative that day, perhaps a good day. He recalls some 20 years before when we soaked in a hot spring deep in the mountains on the Izu peninsula. Big bubbles, you farted. He said, smiling for the first time. Soon, he led me to the family altar in the living room. Framed photo of his wife and young son prominently displayed. I burned a candle and incense and prayed to his long departed beloveds. My wife died yesterday. My boy was only 27. That's life, isn't it? He muttered. I held him in my arms and whispered, you take care. You take care, too, he said firmly this time. A late afternoon train left my hometown, farther and farther behind. Deep orange specimens growing here and there on darkening hillsides. What else could I do but to carry their memories? I kept looking back. No, thank you very much.