Tanka, 2003: untitled

click to view larger image
DW Bender
tanka, haiga, 2003

L'homme est un arbre des champs (by artist, Kola Remaz)

May 8, 2008
To a picture:

While the winter passed,
for sake of art, have cut out
and erased my self.

DW Bender

See Kola's picture, and his other artwork on Flickr, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kolaremaz/2476630438/

Spring Night, Ink

Haiku: One Deep Breath, Prompt 89 theme: Ink

1. Tanka with digital art



how could I help it—
escaping with the spring moon
on this quilted night
somewhere a slow, shifting sound
and ink melts, slips over stone

DW Bender
untitled tanka 2000
==========

2. 2 Haiku

1.

spring nightfall
ink melts
over stone

tombée du jour
l'encre fond
sur la pierre

2.

back and forth
grinding ink slowly
the weight of my words

allant et venant
broyant l'encre lentement
le poids de mes mots

DW Bender, 2000
untitled haiku
published in Temps Libres/Free Times, 'Favorites'
Translated by Serge Tomé, Belgium

Although no snow in Florida

For Haiku: One Deep Breath Week 87 Theme, "Winter Wonders"

even the child
painting, makes snowmen—
where no snow falls

DW Bender
Haiku, January 27, 2008 (rev.)

Notes: In Central Florida, we do not see dramatic winter miracles of snow and ice. However, I experienced a small wonder last week: a bright male cardinal scavanging food on a dry wintering lawn, which became the subject of a haiku in an earlier posting. This month my husband and I enjoyed viewing Japanese hanga, or woodblock prints at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs. Two favorites were shin-hanga snow scenes. This weekend, I have been viewing the wonderous drawings and paintings of children for my own artistic inspiration.

My all-time favorite winter haiku is by the late Owen Burkhart of Dyer, Indiana, who I knew through the Shiki mailing list, and World Haiku Club. He published a book of his poetry, A Single Breath:

first snow
only very small
snowmen

Owen Burkhart (1930-2005)

Here is one of my older digital artworks with a Western-styled rhymed poem constructed with a haiku-like winter sequence (from around 2001):