magnum opus

This is just to say that
               I have a very special book
One of only a select number of hand printed editions extant

A cover of hand cut textured leather
Sewn in is a strip of leather to mark your place
And a clasp of leather around a wooden pin
The pages are bound with brass pegs

A triptych of haiku, photography and music

Photographs
              Patiently captured
              and tipped in between the poems
                               under thin onion paper sleeves

              Unretouched photographs
              Of nature’s subtle human seeming
              Faces etched in sand
              Poetry in lilypads
              The frozen metal of a plough in a field of snow

Robert lived by the credo of no tinkering
              with the images
Though he was known to haggle with the printers to get the colour just right
And he endlessly tinkered with the haiku
The three line verses prance and prod
Delighting in simplicity

And Robert
he was known to walk the town
              in knee length shorts
All year round

He walks on
In words
In pictures
In the music
Of that special book.

Adrian 12/25/05