Inspired by ....

41/2x41/2 panels using encaustic with collage. These were done ages ago but thought I would repost for Throwback Thursday. I was inspired by the poem 'Japan' by Billy Collins. The poem is about a Haiku and I have taken an excerpt from that poem and printed below.

It's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it into the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.