b'Double Rainbows Man/Gods promise no more floods of fire or blood (fig. 33) is significantly more hopeful. Below a canopy of circles and trianglesforming, perhaps, a protective shieldtwo rainbow trout leap from the water below. The double rainbows of the title refer both to the meteorological phenomenon and the fish. The biblical covenant is here linked with a human promise of con-servation, indicating the shared responsibility to protect the Earth and its people from floods of fire or blood.In addition to his changing graphic style, and his more expansive view of the world and his place in it, by this time Makuuchi was deeply engaged with words and narrative. While it is not clear precisely when he first began to write poetry, his MFA thesis, written in 1975, includes a page of what he called quick flip lip quips that include phrases that later found their way into his poems. 81It is likely that Makuuchi began writing while in Nigeria; shortly after his return to the United States two of his poems were included in the volume A Confluence of Colors: The First Anthology of Wisconsin Minority Poets (1984). As the decade progressed, Makuuchis prints and poems, which he claimed came to him while he slept, began to fuel one another. 82A 1980s image of Makuuchis grandmother, Kikue Takahashi, further points to the dramatic difference in his style and the new relationship between his words and images after his return from Nigeria. Rooting (fig. 48, p. 121) may have been inspired by his poem Black Diamonds, although such a direct relationship between prints and poetry is often difficult to discern. The poem and image relate a scene from daily life at Minidoka, where the artist and his grandmother walked the grounds, supplementing their supply of coal for the pot-bellied stoves in their dwellings by rooting out dropped coal fragments with sticks. The linear style of this later print is jagged and crude; the two figures, seen from above and at a distance, are almost caricatures of destitution. Kikues hair hangs long, and her garment is shapeless. There is none of the calm, stolid strength projected by the earlier portrait made in Iowa (see fig. 50, p. 131). In general, the figures in Makuuchis post-Nigerian work are more generalizedthey are a means to push forward a story, rather than the storys subjects. Even when they are identifiable as specific people, Makuuchi often pays no attention to capturing their likeness, which represents a distinct change from his earlier work. Another trend in Makuuchis work that began in the late 1980s was his use of text within printed compositions. Sometimes the words are fragmentary, but increasingly they came to play a larger role in the composition. Interestingly, he generally inscribed the words in the proper orientation on the plate so that they appear backwards in the final print. This has the effect of making the scriptFIGURE \x0b\x0b Double Rainbows Man/Gods promise no more floods of fire or blood CHECKIST #4156'