In one email download I got lovely photos from Heidi and a message from Aya saying she liked Werner's drawing the best. So that is settled! Oh, I just realized I need to send Aya a messge. More later!

As the text pages come together for the second edition of Taking Tanka Home, I am beginning to think of changing the cover also. I love Werner and I love his artwork but I am wondering if the abstract red drawing says, "Yosemite" at all. So I asked Aya what she thought, and asked Heidi if she had any photos I could use. Basically I am leaving the choice of covers up to the Universe. Whatever works will determine what it will become.
You can see the photo I have my eye on on Heidi's web page.

The book, Taking Tanka Home is on a strange journey to redemption. Originally, I put the collection together and sent the poems off to Heidi, my daughter, to see if we could do a book together with her photos of Yosemite and my poems. That did not happen.
Then when I need a series of poems to take back to Japan they seemed ideal. My original plan was to have all the poems translated into Japanese. Two different guys worked over 4 months and got 15 out of 70 tanka across the big pond of poetry. I was pressed up against the deadline of the trip and let the book go.
Then when Aya Yuhki showed me her copy with each poem already translated I was blown away and immediately said, "Yes, let us do a second edition." It is now done except the manuscript is waiting for her new preface.
Then this weekend I get a request from a guy asking for haiku to go with his photos of Yosemite. If I could talk him into putting the photos into TTH with tanka instead of haiku it would bring that original dream even closer to reality. Some days I feel 'things' are going too slow with the second edition, but then I feel that things are happening that simply need more time to manifest.