WEBVTT

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I'd like to read two more poems.

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The next one is called
"Six Persimmon."

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And the poem came out of
just a passing experience.

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I'd seen, a year
or so ago, a book

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in a window-- a painting
book in a window--

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with a famous Chinese
or Japanese painting

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on the cover of several
persimmon fruit on it.

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And somehow, later, I
was thinking about it

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and began to write
a poem about that.

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And I looked up--

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I don't do this very often,
look up information for poems,

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but I went to the
library with Gail

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and we looked up-- she
finally found it, I think.

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We found that it was a Chinese
ink wash by a Zen Buddhist

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monk.

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And apparently, it's a very
famous ink wash painting,

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and it's called "Six Persimmon."

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So I let that painting
be a starting point.

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"Six Persimmon."

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"Gathered 400 or 500 years
ago in an orchard, these six

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persimmon reflect a
vague spire of water.

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The orchard was tended by a
girl with her robe undone.

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The painter opened
his window to copy

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the road and the
girl who crosses it,

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thinking herself unobserved.

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That which passes, cloudy sky
and the thin trees of autumn,

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and that which comes to pass.

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Intoxication of the eye,
reflecting light on flesh.

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Quiver of air at the
edge of the breast.

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Painting is the cruelest
art, the disinterested truth,

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inking her poor, flat hair.

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And the portrait of a
girl becomes, at best,

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an abstraction of
a robe pressing

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inward on the milky
breasts which, if released,

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would spoil this
contemplative afternoon.

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The artist may have known that
beneath his own saffron robe

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is a desire whose quivering
has just now ceased.

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And his fingers furtive a moment
ago, now launch forth to ink

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out the curve of the breast,
and escape those open eyes,

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which after a while, reappear
as fruit here in America."

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[APPLAUSE]