I am greatly honored that my haiga “concrete jungle” has been selected for the online exhibition in the World Haiku Association’s 159th Haiga Contest.

Whether you live deep in the heart of a city, or commute to and from an urban area, we are surrounded by the elephants of the modern world – highways, bridges, overpasses, train tracks, skyscrapers, and all other marvels of engineering. They help us get from Point A to Point B in (usually) record time. They help us maximize vertical space in an overcrowded world. And they help us traverse and even inhabit spaces normally friendly only to fish or fowl.

But while these gargantuan structures my seem miraculous, as products of steel and cement – and no small amount of blood, sweat, and tears – they, like us, are destined to decay and disintegrate.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I shot the photo in my ‘concrete jungle’ haiga beneath an overpass that spans a busy urban thoroughfare. The pile of concrete shards on the ground at the foot of the wall that supports the overpass is a metaphor for the decay that will eventually claim all things born of the human intellect and made of human hands.

I am most grateful to judge Kuniharu Shimizu for selecting my haiga for this honor.