Book Twenty-one

This could also be called the book of crows as there are so many flying through the pages. 

It was also during the tenure of this book that I created a set of stamps for the imaginary kingdom of Akshara. The book contains notes on the designs, and the mythology which underpins the commemorative issue. Here is the first day cover with a return address: Kingdom of Akshara Royal Postal Service Overseas Philatelic Bureau.

They were triangular - the most exotic shape of stamps. But triangular stamps are very very difficult to perforate, and I trashed quite a few sheets before I got it right. Here is the layout of the stamps on a sheet.

Here are some close ups of the individual stamps.

The book also contains this poem:

In the springtime there is air

and the bite of foliage:

transactions of weather and

hesitant abundance.

Certain clouds are without

youth or age, no age but

impermanence, no youth but

apparition.

I once knew a man could 

forecast with a mirror, save

halos and vapours in amber

forsaking the light bodies of 

dead insects, as everyone knows

the dead are without souls.

If I awake sometime past 

November, we must negotiate

the year; times of harvest and

repentance. For each of us 

there is a season, for every will

an August, for every soul

a disturbance in the air.