cupped
inmyhands
the
discarded skin
of a grasshopper-nymph
l
o n g s t a l k o f g r a s s...acast-offhusk
...........................s
w a
y s...beside
thebeatenpath
discovered by thecouple
2stepsahead
who stopped
to look.............
.........andthen......moved
on...
aboard the ferry
.andmoving.....toward the backrowseats
I
search
out 2youngchildren
accompaniedbytheirparents
dangling
half-over
the railing
the2boys scout
thefarshore
I
o p e n m
y h a n d s
with 2fingers
lift the husk out
to show them
hollow-hind-legssecuredinmygrasp
'a
grasshopper
left this behind'
I say
t
h
E y S q u
i r
M
I
let the wind take it
the
boatmanpushes...off from
the mooring
.......tidal current
......................pul
l i n g u s........a w
a y
theengine
s
p u t t e
r s backto life
Fort Matanzas deserted
mud
crabs duel...among oyster shells
Notes:
In October, 1565, Pedro Menendez de Aviles slaughtered over 250 surviving castaways.
French Huguenots from Fort Caroline to the north who were advancing to attack
the incoming Spanish settlers. Shipwrecked by hurricane. Blocked by the inlet.
On the peninsula's mainland, the Spaniards established San Agustin, which would
become the oldest continual colony in the country. 100 years later, and taking
84 years to complete, quarrying of the native *coquina stone was begun for construction
of Castillo de San Marcos, overlooking the bay of San Agustin. And almost 200
years after the massacres, a "back door" fort was erected of the same
stone on a barrier island at the mouth of the inlet, *Ft. Matanzas; a small, but
effective sentinel. Here, soldiers guarded the waterway and the colony of San
Agustin. Now, from the British and any other enemies. Not long afterward, in 1763,
all of "La Florida" was ceded to the British in exchange for captive
Havana, capital of Cuba. "La Florida" would become "Florida"
when it became United States territory; San Agustin is now known by the English
pronunciation: St. (Saint) Augustine.
*coquina stone: "coquina" is Spanish for "little shell"; the
porous stone is a native sedimentary lime calcification consisting of masses of
tiny coquina clamshells and shell fragments. The underlying foundation of
Anastasia Island, the soft quarried stone hardens as it dries. Walls
constructed of coquina could absorb cannon balls to a limited depth, whence they
would be pried out and returned in fire on the invading enemy.
*Matanzas: Spanish for "slaughters"
Artist-poet
D.W. (Debi) Bender resides in Orlando, Florida, USA, where she has lived for the
past dozen years or so. Her interest in combining her visual arts with her poetry
began many years ago. At times she has experimented with concrete poetry, which
eventually found its way into her haiku, haiku series, and "art-haiku"
(contemporary "haiga") after she rediscovered haiku on the internet
in 1999. Since that time, she has been exploring the combination of visual
arts and poetry in her haiku, tanka, "ren" (new-renga) forms, sijo, haibun
and multi-genre poems. She has combined haibun with her artwork, photography,
and concrete text-visuals, using the text to illustrate and expand meaning,
as she has done in "Departure from Rattlesnake Island."
Debi views
her multimedia efforts through the Japanese poetic forms as hybrid styles.
Her art-poetry is meant to be different from Japanese haiga and haibun, but in
their own right, a Western style of art which has grown "out from" Japanese
forms, borrowing from their concepts for inspiration.
Debi has worked
with the World Haiku Club in various aspects since 2000, and is WHC's Deputy Chairman
and the Editor-in-Chief of its online magazine, World Haiku Review.
Websites:
World
Haiku Club (WHC Official
site)
World
Haiku Review (magazine of WHC)
Paper
Lanterns (Personal Website)
