The Great Wave

The haiku is a reference to the famous Japanese wood block print, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, and to Japan’s 17th century movement of arts and literature, ukiyo, or floating world. This movement was described in 1661 as, “living only for the moment, savouring the moon, the snow, the cherries in flower and the leaves of the maple, singing songs, drinking sake and enjoying simply floating, indifferent to the prospect of impending poverty, optimistic and carefree, like a pumpkin dragged along by the current of the river.”

This post is a response to Jennifer Nichole Wells’ One Word Photo Challenge: Tsunami. (I wrote it last Wednesday, but promised this image a couple days off after being used in posts twice in one day earlier this week. Once to illustrate a post about my favourite abstract muse, paint. And almost immediately after for Jennifer’s previous challenge: Hurricane 😉 )