This one is called "The Tao and the Art of Leavetaking."
And I wrote this at an artist colony
where I was going through a long dry spell.
We talked alongside-- Alison and I
talked about the difficulty it is to write and teach
simultaneously.
And also the visual artists were setting up still lives
for themselves and it was working--
I mean, and it was wonderful.
So I decided to set up a still life as well.
And it worked well for me and I pushed through the dry season.
"The Tao and the Art of Leavetaking."
"Peach is prosaic.
The object has everyday applications.
Six cloves of fruit some left on the sill too long.
Black on white, peduncles attached.
Profound ontological statements.
Not no.
Not nada but not.
Some may call it nothingness.
Some prefer "pearapple," for all fruits lead to God.
Narcissus in a cracked porcelain bowl.
Chrysanthemum mantis and gourd, crane, and pine, and wisteria.
Sparrow on a basket of persimmons.
Still life with peaches and plum blossoms.
Landscape with pavilions and pomegranates.
Touchable and turbid.
Speakable and nameable.
Emptiness is but one mind.
One mind is of no mind.
Observe the technique, ponder in it.
Become a wooden doll with no ego.
It thinks nothing.
It does nothing.
Let legs splay and arms flail.
Discipline is the ultimate freedom.
Take off her head, open, see, hollow.
Practice the fine delineations.
The subtle nuances, distinctions clear cut as a hair.
Though you died I have to let you go.
Though I died I must let you go.
Though she died still we must go.
Though he died, she must go.
What is above the form is the Tao.
What is within the form is called tools.
That which transforms things is called change.
I see you walking in your newly hennaed hair, gingerly,
a monk treading on rice paper.
I see you dancing in your Hawaiian flowered shirt.
My dark skin against your whiteness.
A winter sky that resists the dawn.
Leave taking at its simplest--
last night the verses halted, the rice paper lay idle,
the black ink dried in the receptacle."