Kumu

Kumu
Master of the half-withered branch
I went to see his paintings.

At the tattered edge
Of the street of Chinese houses,
Not thatched pavilions

Nor palaces
Their tiled roofs spread like heron wings –
Valley boulevard

Its middle fattened
With ultramodern conspicuous consumption
And postmodern irony.

Zeitgeist transiting
Strangely from blood-stoned castles
Through Spain, Mexico, California

Now settles
Between Shanghai and Los Angeles
Then thins to a trickle.

The last few houses
Like a bird’s little hops
Or flung-ink splotches

Lead to a clearing
At the center of a bamboo grove
A cave with inscriptions.

Here are shades of ash
Wet ink like moonlight
Random spots of color

Intense memories
Surrounded by evanescence
Between waking and dreaming.

The Daoist immortals
Here conduct their strange rituals
Oblivious of each other.

Spirit consonance
Is Xie He’s first principle
Between blur and object the shaman dances

Border crossing
In the animism of graded ink
Encounters structural method.

Pungent like tea
Gaunt like old bamboo
Eccentric like an ancient scholar

Simple like the crow
Existence stands indelible
A flash of laughter.

Three birds in one
Did it happen at all
Is it time passing or time being born?

Viewing fine scenery
In spring, summer, fall, winter
This gathering of poets

Spontaneous and unrepeatable
Reincarnates perpetually
The air is thick with déjà vu.

Like an easily missed wink
Like the flick of a fish-tail
It perches on the half-withered branch.