Happy Together

Happy Together © Istvan Kerekes 2011

I have become the best and worst I dreamed.
When I move my feet, the ground moves under them.
When I lie down, I fit the earth too well.
Stones long underwater will burst in the fire, but stones
Long in the sun and under the dry night
Will ring when you strike them. Or break in two.
There were always many places to beg for answers:
Now the places themselves have come in close to be told.
I have called even my voice in close to whisper with it:
Every secret is as near as your fingers.
If your heart stutters with pain and hope,
Bend forward over it like a man at a small campfire.

~ David Wagoner ~

(Excerpt from “Old Man, Old Man”)

The Story of this Photograph:  This man and his wife live in Transylvania in a village called Nagykede where the population is only 19. The couple spends the summers in this small village, but in autumn they move back to the city. They are both around 80 ( the husband is 82 and the wife is 78 to be more precise) and, as you can see, they have been living happily together for many, many years. ~(Photographer’s narrative).

Istvan Kerekes, In his Own Words:

I have been dealing with photography since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images.
One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it:  “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

*image posted with kind permission of Istvan Kerekes

Haiku My Heart: To Build a Life

female construction worker © Robert (Jamshedpur, India)

Stones Shaped like Bread Loaves

Form Steps for Hungry Souls Who

Stretch toward Heaven.

~Noelle Renee 7.20.11

 

“The moment of transformation, when one thing turns into another, is the most beautiful.”

~ Vik Muniz, Artist (From his documentary Waste Land).

To understand the lives of women who work in the construction industry in India, please read Here and Here.

About the Photographer:

Robert hails from Germany and spends much of his time photographing in various parts of India. This photograph  of a female construction worker was captured in Jamshedpur. You may find much more of Robert’s deeply engrossing and beautiful work on his website and also on 1x.com.

For more glorious Haiku Magic and community connection, please visit recuerda mi corazon where rebecca will be delighted to greet you!

Bubble Up Monk

Bubble-up Monk © 2011 Wings

Poems in Three Parts

1
Oh on an early morning I think I shall live forever!
I am wrapped in my joyful flesh
As the grass is wrapped in its clouds of green.
2
Rising from a bed where I dreamt
Of long rides past castles and hot coals
The sun lies happily on my knees;
I have suffered and survived the night
Bathed in dark water like any blade of grass.
3
The strong leaves of the box-elder tree
Plunging in the wind call us to disappear
Into the wilds of the universe
Where we shall sit at the foot of a plant
And live forever like the dust.

~Robert Bly

 

Story Behind the Photograph From the Photographer:

Bubble up Monk took place within the Angkor Wat Complex out side of Siem Reap at night. This young monk is plainly in the middle of a bath, standing up.   I was interested in the Monks  because there are Elders that are functioning as leaders. During the Killing Fields  that took place 34 years back, the monks were forced to denounce Buddhism or die. Many of the elder Monks died.

As the reconstruction of Cambodia continues to build many young people have taken to the orange robes for survival being that work, food, and a place to live in can be scarce and the world beyond the community, lawless. One might become a monk because there is no other alternative or place of refuge. In fact if there is a better option many move out and explore it, but then when all fails they re-enter the order.

Buddhism today is a community of young boys learning the rights and wrongs Buddha ordained as proper conduct.  A new shaved head and removal of all facial hair is a symbolic welcoming moment back in to the Buddhist order.  Being a teenager with raging hormones is not an easy path without adult  guidance. But in a community aging between 4 to 24, much is questioned and worked out for the good.

~Wings

About the Photographer

Wings hails from New York in the United States. You may find his work on 1x.com.

I’ve come to realize that my art has diversity with powerful individual vision, that chronicles the life of individuals. People draw me into their lives to tell their story to anyone willing to listen and validate their reason for living. My attraction to story telling grew as my life developed behind a camera. I discovered that its not how a photographer looks at the world that is important, its their relationship with their fellow human beings and these moments of connectivity that are frozen in time for all to see. Last thought for the photographer, "Whatever you look to see outside, is waiting inside you".

~Wings

Hope is Bright

©2011 Istvan Kerekes with kind permission
The Rider
(For Will)
A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
~The Rider by Naomi Shihab Nye

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Istvan Kerekes, (The Photographer) In his Own Words:
I have been dealing with photography since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images.One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it:  “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.
~Istvan Kerekes

Haiku My Heart: Soul Protector

Menjaga Adik © 2011 Adhi Prayoga  with kind permission

Tr. “Look After Younger Siblings.”

 

No Stable or Star

Wise Foreign Kings Bear No Gifts

She Hums Lullabies

~Noelle Renee 7.14.11

 

 

About the Photographer:

Adhi Prayoga hails from Mataram, Indonesia.

Adhi’s hobby is photography and he aspires to be a professional.  He seems to be well on his way.  Currently, he works a regular job in a family business trading motorcycle parts.

The Story of this Photo:

While Adhi was cycling one day up in one of the remote Indonesian villages called love-love gunungsari west Lombok, he happened upon this young girl looking after her young brother while her mother was away at work. Their mother works all day, breaking stones for building materials and they are a very poor family. He took the picture and captured the love of this young girl for her brother and her early responsibility forever.

You may find this photograph on 1x.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more haiku my heart visit rebecca at

recuerda mi corazon, a beautiful place to be.

For What Binds Us

Silence © Dragomir Vukovic 2011 with kind permission ~ (couple pictured here had been together for 50 years),

For What Binds Us

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down --
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest --

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

~ Jane Hirschfield ~

(Of Gravity & Angels)

 

About the Photographer:

Dragomir Vukovic hails from Portland, Oregon. You may find his work on his personal website. You may also find his fine photographs at fotocommunity.com and finally, of course, on 1x.com. His black and white photographs are incredibly beautiful and there are hours of enjoyment to be had visiting his site.

On his website you find the following information:

Dragomir    Vukovic  

OCCUPATION:

Mixed with 1

FAVORITE CAMERA:

Canon EOS 1V

FAVORITE SUBJECTS:

Every-Thing

FAVORITE JOURNAL:

I am That / Nisargadatta Maharaj

FAVORITE VACATION SPOT:

India, Cuba, Brazil, B.C., Utah...

PERSONAL MOTTO:

Listen To See IT, Look To Hear IT

Whatever you are looking to see outside, is waiting inside

FATE

Fate © István Kerekes

I Wish You Knew

I wish you knew that~no matter what~ someone loves you,
I wish you knew what you mean to the world,
I wish you knew how perfect you are,
I wish you knew you aren't alone,
I wish you knew that there's nothing wrong with you,
I wish you knew how much the world loves you the way you are.

~Written by Shadow Knight 

10 years old

~published here with permission and my thanks

(first published on Heaven’s Cry)

About the Photographer~

Istvan Kerekes hails from Kazincbarcika, Hungary.You will find all of his phenomenal photos on his website . The photo above and a number of other fine Kerekes photos can also be found  at 1x.com. Please visit Istvan’s website for a more complete sense of his portfolio. You will find the site magical and have great difficulty tearing yourself away from the beauty of the photographic work within. I certainly did. My thanks to Istvan Kerekes for this stunning portrait.

In the Photographer’s Own Words ~

I have been dealing with photography since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images.
One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it:  “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes