Dick Allen

Three years, Huang Gongwang worked on his famous handscroll, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.

What every painter knows, but most others forget is how bright colors dim in artificial light and lobster tastes most fresh the nearer to death you set your teeth into the lobster’s flesh.

Stumps. Railroad tracks. Early sicknesses, the blue one, especially. Your first love rounding a corner, that snowy minefield. Whether you step lightly or heavily, you have to get over to that tree line a hundred yards in the distance before evening falls, letting no one see you wend your way, that wonderful, old-fashioned word,wend, meaning “to proceed, to journey, to travel from one place to another,” as from bed to breakfast, breakfast to imbecile work. You have to get over your resentments, the sun in the morning and the moon at night, all those shadows of yourself you left behind on odd little tables. Tote that barge! Lift that bale! You have to cross that river, jump that hedge, surmount that slogan, crawl over this ego or that eros, then hoist yourself up onto that yonder mountain. Another old-fashioned word,yonder, meaning “that indicated place, somewhere generally seen or just beyond sight.” If you would recover, you have to get over the shattered autos in the backwoods lot to that bridge in the darkness where the sentinels stand guarding the border with their half-slung rifles, warned of the likes of you.

It approaches from the sea, too small For thunder and lightning But ominous as a closed fist And what it will bring Nearing us, growing larger, Is completely unknown.

Make your strokes thus:the horizontal: as a cloud that slowly drifts across the horizon; the vertical: as an ancient but strong vine stem; the dot: a falling rock; and learn to master the sheep leg, the tiger’s claw, an apricot kernel, a dewdrop, the new moon, the wave rising and falling

It is pleasant, very pleasant, to sit at a wooden booth surrounded by parrots, wheels, right-turning conch shells, the victory banner and the endless knot, the lotus, the treasure vase, the golden fishes— is this not so? Is it not pleasant to sip Tsingtao beer, or Zhujiang, or Yanjing, and tap your fingers on the bamboo mats? After we’ve drunk enough, there will be Buddhist Delight, Mongolian beef side dishes, a whole host of sauces, even some pizza and chicken wings if children are present, as well as the small ice-cream machine, lotus paste, pears, smiles and bows all around. It is pleasant, is it not, to linger outside the door that opens to the parking lot of this small strip mall beside this secondary road and look upon the scattered cars all come to rest here like boats in China, floating on a quiet evening tide.

I’ve always worried about you—the man or woman at the piano bench, night after night receiving only such applause as the singer allows:a warm hand please, for my accompanist