katsura nobuko

lens-artists photo challenge: distance

My abode is

in winter seclusion

on this white mountain in Echigo.

No trace of humans

coming or going ~ Ryokan (Trans: K tanahashi, Sky Above, Great Wind)

Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/400 35mm 200 ISO

with nothing

to touch, a dead branch

grabs at the sky ~Katsura Nobuko (cited: Trans: M Ueda, Far Beyond the Field)

Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/10s 35mm 200 ISO

Protecting the child

from the cold autumn wind,

the old scarecrow. ~ Issa (cited: Trans: S Hamill, The Spring of My Life)

Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/640s 35mm 200 ISO

Winter wind!

A charcoal peddler all alone

in a small ferry boat ~ Buson (cited: Trans: Y Sawa & E M Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)

A special thank you to the Lens-Artists Photographers who continue to challenge and inspire. The above images and poetry is submitted in response to Travels and Trifles challenge: distance.

Please be safe. We can do this…we really can!

“Mystere: – Kalimando” | Cirque du Soleil

on the water…

horsetooth reservoir winterwalk

on the water

a clear image of blossoms

death close by*

~Katsura Nobuko

Cited: Makoto Ueda, Far Beyond the Field

*’Death is close by, because the mirror image of the cherry blossoms, clearer than the actual flowers, will disappear with the slightest breath of wind.

Nikon D750 f/5 1/2000s 85mm 200 ISO

katsura nobuko

Wild geese —

between their cries, a slice

of silence ~ Katsura Nobuko (M Ueda, Far Beyond the Field)

Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/2500 s 170 mm 1800 ISO

Katsura Nobuko was born Niwa Nobuko in Osaka, Japan on November 1, 1914. When she was five, she almost died of acute pneumonia. After graduating from Ootemae Girls’ High School, she began writing haiku when the poems in ‘Kikan’ (The flagship) magazine impressed her with their nontraditional style. She subsequently met the magazine’s editor, Hino Soojoo, and became his protege. Her marriage in 1939 changed her family name to Katsura, but her husband died two years later.

Childless, Nobuko returned to her mother’s home. On March 13, 1945, the home caught fire as the American planes bombed Osaka. Unable to put out the fire she gathered her haiku manuscripts before fleeing barefooted. It is said that when she was reunited with her mother, her mother – weeping – said, “You are safe — that’s all I care.” The rescued manuscripts were later published in her first volume, ‘Gekkoo shoo (Beams of the moon 1949).