WEBVTT

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This one is called "The Tao
and the Art of Leavetaking."

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And I wrote this
at an artist colony

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where I was going
through a long dry spell.

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We talked alongside--
Alison and I

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talked about the difficulty
it is to write and teach

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simultaneously.

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And also the visual artists
were setting up still lives

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for themselves and
it was working--

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I mean, and it was wonderful.

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So I decided to set up
a still life as well.

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And it worked well for me and I
pushed through the dry season.

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"The Tao and the
Art of Leavetaking."

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"Peach is prosaic.

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The object has
everyday applications.

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Six cloves of fruit some
left on the sill too long.

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Black on white,
peduncles attached.

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Profound ontological statements.

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Not no.

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Not nada but not.

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Some may call it nothingness.

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Some prefer "pearapple,"
for all fruits lead to God.

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Narcissus in a cracked
porcelain bowl.

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Chrysanthemum mantis and gourd,
crane, and pine, and wisteria.

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Sparrow on a basket
of persimmons.

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Still life with peaches
and plum blossoms.

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Landscape with pavilions
and pomegranates.

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Touchable and turbid.

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Speakable and nameable.

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Emptiness is but one mind.

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One mind is of no mind.

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Observe the technique,
ponder in it.

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Become a wooden
doll with no ego.

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It thinks nothing.

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It does nothing.

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Let legs splay and arms flail.

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Discipline is the
ultimate freedom.

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Take off her head,
open, see, hollow.

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Practice the fine delineations.

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The subtle nuances, distinctions
clear cut as a hair.

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Though you died I
have to let you go.

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Though I died I must let you go.

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Though she died
still we must go.

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Though he died, she must go.

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What is above the
form is the Tao.

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What is within the
form is called tools.

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That which transforms
things is called change.

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I see you walking in your
newly hennaed hair, gingerly,

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a monk treading on rice paper.

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I see you dancing in your
Hawaiian flowered shirt.

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My dark skin against
your whiteness.

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A winter sky that
resists the dawn.

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Leave taking at its simplest--

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last night the verses halted,
the rice paper lay idle,

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the black ink dried
in the receptacle."

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