About this art: This set of Japanese style linked verse springs from the water/rain imagery and the discussion of love and loss in the music I received. The poem takes its own cycle -wounded hope, descending into darkness and returning to hope- and in the process amplifies and extends that theme. In both the textual and underlying readings the linked verse examines each part of the cycle ending with a message that both life and death, valiant failure and noble success, are a gift and what we make of this inevitable cycle determines if we see the beauty or only the loss. About Scott Jorgensen: Scott is a mostly retired alternative fuel research engineer/ scientist/ manager. Born and raised in Illinois but spending most of his life in south east Michigan, with a five year sojourn in California, he has a strong interest in ecology (another field where cycles are important) and nature in general, music, gardening (more cycles!), and does his share of reading. While he has always felt most at home in Haiku among the myriad forms of poetry, this is his first attempt at linked verse. In the Haiku world he is a fan of Bashō. Cultural influences in his upbringing and life, for better or worse, include Monty Python, Ogden Nash, H H Munro, The Cure, Pink Floyd, Robert Heinlein, Richard Bach, Eric Satie, Ludwig von Beethoven, William Bouguereau, Norman Rockwell, William Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard.