"Seated Cat" by Kiyoshi Saito

Monday I wrote a haiku in response to a print of a white cat by a different 20th-century Japanese printmaker, Today, how about a black cat? Halloween is on Saturday, after all.

The eyes say it all
She is present, yet undone
Ink staining the grain

"Winter in Aizu" by Kiyoshi Saito

It is a tremendously cold day. The sky is grey and overcast, so there will be no shining reprieve from the sun. The closest structure bulges like the bow of a ship stuck in a frozen sea. Bare, black tree branches wearing white stripes of snow curl and reach, then flop over, weary from exertion. Icicles line the roofs like rows of predatory teeth. And while the landscape is layered - mountains, buildings, trees, snow-covered ground - the people seem to almost live in a two dimensional world; a wide, flat man trudges across the scene while two stick-figures moving away slip into the cracks of their own silhouettes. Anything to get away from this cold, bleak, motionless scene.