I'd like to read two more poems.
The next one is called "Six Persimmon."
And the poem came out of just a passing experience.
I'd seen, a year or so ago, a book
in a window-- a painting book in a window--
with a famous Chinese or Japanese painting
on the cover of several persimmon fruit on it.
And somehow, later, I was thinking about it
and began to write a poem about that.
And I looked up--
I don't do this very often, look up information for poems,
but I went to the library with Gail
and we looked up-- she finally found it, I think.
We found that it was a Chinese ink wash by a Zen Buddhist
monk.
And apparently, it's a very famous ink wash painting,
and it's called "Six Persimmon."
So I let that painting be a starting point.
"Six Persimmon."
"Gathered 400 or 500 years ago in an orchard, these six
persimmon reflect a vague spire of water.
The orchard was tended by a girl with her robe undone.
The painter opened his window to copy
the road and the girl who crosses it,
thinking herself unobserved.
That which passes, cloudy sky and the thin trees of autumn,
and that which comes to pass.
Intoxication of the eye, reflecting light on flesh.
Quiver of air at the edge of the breast.
Painting is the cruelest art, the disinterested truth,
inking her poor, flat hair.
And the portrait of a girl becomes, at best,
an abstraction of a robe pressing
inward on the milky breasts which, if released,
would spoil this contemplative afternoon.
The artist may have known that beneath his own saffron robe
is a desire whose quivering has just now ceased.
And his fingers furtive a moment ago, now launch forth to ink
out the curve of the breast, and escape those open eyes,
which after a while, reappear as fruit here in America."
[APPLAUSE]