The Abstractaphy Initiative

Caroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Caroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

call it what you will
late fall
roses still in bloom

bottle rockets #38 (2016)

By Theresa A. Cancro – Wilmington, Delaware, USA

ceasefire—
under the weeping fig
a blind doll

Caroline Giles Banks – Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Mother maples, and their promised seedlings and saplings, filter pollutants from the air.

Printed on paper—trees’ shrouds—The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Forest Service will terminate a $75 million dollar grant allocated to replace hundreds of thousands of trees lost to Hurricane Katrina, many in an historically Black community in New Orleans. By Executive Order, environmental justice initiatives that assure a percentage of climate investments go to disadvantaged communities “no longer meet government priorities.”

agnostic buzz saws pulp 
Latin<—-> English primers
DEI<—->GODS

The Last Oak Leaf: Haiku, Senryu and Haibun Poems, Caroline Giles Banks. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Wellington-Giles Press, 2025.

Caroline Giles Banks – Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

sun and wind
unfunded
what on earth?

tsuri-doro #27 (May/June 2025)

lilacs re-bloom
spring
discombobulates

bottle rockets #52 (February 2025)

the Rio Grande
trickles down
to a misnomer

tsuri-doro #13 (Jan/Feb 2023)

Caroline Giles Banks – Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

The Eye of the Beholder
In the Company of Burtynsky and Basho

Edward Burtynsy’s photographs are stories of human alterations to the Earth. Taken using drones and fixed-wing aircraft these depict large-scale industrial projects and their effect on the environment. I am especially drawn to a photo of the tailings pond of an African diamond mine. Seen from the air, it appears almost beautiful, like a massive flower with its black-and-white petals opened and impressed upon the ground. I am reminded of Basho’s words:

How admirable!
to see lighting and not think
life is fleeting

Translation by Robert Hass
The Essential Haiku: Verses of Basho, Buson and Issa.
New Jersey: The Ecco Press, 1994

First published in Drifting Sands Haibun #19 (January 2023)

See “Edward Burtynsky. Over 40 Years of Bearing Witness to the Impacts of Human Industry on the Planet.” www.edwardburtynsky.com

By Subhash Roy Choudhury – Cuttack, Odisha, India

revolution square—
a beggar steps aside
for the parade

By Theresa A. Cancro – Wilmington, Delaware, USA

milk moon . . .
in the migrant camp
a child’s swollen belly

By Wade R. DeYoung – Haines City, FL, United States

Agents of Apocalypse
        –very loosely after Sandra Simonds’ Orlando

Many folks champion humans,
with bombs, bullets,
intentional infection policies.
Humans aspire to this position
prestigious,
but no.
They rank as amateurs.

Might reptiles qualify?
Crocodiles and caimans
with ivory teeth and jaws
like snap traps
or rattlers, mambas,
cobras, copperheads, cottonmouths
oozing venom villainous.
But no.

Arthropods are close contenders.
Mosquitoes, tsetse flies,
tiny flying vampires.
Ticks, hypodermic needles of death.
But no.

COVID, AIDS, smallpox, yellow fever,
dengue, Ebola, measles, rabies
—caused by viruses,
just two vector-borne.
Anthrax, botulism, diphtheria,
leprosy, syphilis, cholera,
bubonic plague
—bacteria-borne,
but one vector-borne.
Malaria, sleeping sickness
—both arthropod-borne
but caused by protozoans.
Millions of microbes,
malevolence in mind,
preserve the prize
as the agents of Apocalypse
and Ragnarök.