Bamboo
Sometimes I have spent hours face to face with a single stalk, watching for its essence, listening, waiting on the sheer edge of attention, until my arm begins to sway in the light wind, and my brush is blown across the page, along the branches, out to the tendrils and leaves, the last spray turns into calligraphy, moves down the lines of verse, and with one final, half-dry flourish: signs my name.
Lakeside Geese
Desolation. The forest’s bones. Blunt strokes of gray and black, ink-spots sprayed over rocks, among twigs jutting out from the thick snow. Black clouds over sky and ground, through which, high up, geese
plunge.
Off to the side a man, transparent, with a short travel-staff, stands halfway across the frail wooden bridge.
When it is cold, you die of cold.
Orchid and Rock
I have painted them in the same mild tones of grayish green.
The orchid supports itself on its thin stem, under the arch of a long, grasslike leaf. The rock, moss-speckled, is suspended in air, yet it keeps its composure. Each may represent whatever you wish, though I have painted them from life, which has no symbols.
When speech comes from a quiet heart, it has the strength of the orchid, and the fragrance of rock.
Wilderness Cottage
They say that I honor tradition, that I’m a worthy disciple. But I am simply myself. The beards and eyebrows of the ancestors can’t grow on my face, nor can their bowels function in my belly. If my paintings occasionally look like some ancient master’s, he’s the one who is following me, not vice versa. When have I ever studied the great ones without turning them upside down?
The truth is that mountains, rivers, peach blossoms, artichokes have requested me to speak for them. They find a language through me; I find a language through them. When the spirit of Nature joins with my spirit, both are transformed. So that, in the end, everything leads back to me.