A memoir of the years in Japan in poetry, prose, and 47 black ink paintings.

"Water Ground Stone evokes the many faces of Japan. And the essential aspects of the ground on which a Japanese poet, a Japanese artist, stands—the physical and psychic ground from which the art flowers.
Thomas and Karen set out to illuminate the Japanese experience, not to reduce it. They evoke it clearly as they experience it . . . not being Japanese, not pretending to be Japanese, not pretending to be pure prism, being simply others who walk the same path as the Japanese creator, but coming the other way. They are persons from outside whose presence effects, of course, what happens; whose minds are full of screens and mirrors, yet are, along with their hearts, open enough to see and respect what is there, what goes on, with no compulsion to explain away its 'strangeness'.

It is a book of clear seeing, graceful speech".

Ôoka Makoto

—even the lichen lies so deep
in the pores of the water ground stone
we touch it less than the wind