Mao I

Mao I (After an ink drawing by Mao I, Song dynasty, c. 1100 in the Freer Gallery of Oriental Art) Faded, brown, discrete, as flowers pressed in some antique book or magazine suggest an intimate mood--fleeting, flown, perennial, between timeless print grown meaningless, his femur sausage-linked bamboo or supple joint-less trout, lightly inked, survived the arson and the coup d'etats. We find no window-sized Madonna or noble in fluffed moustache winking across the room at a burgher winking back. Here on a silk pane, light-boned swallows toss in the wind-sifted willows, While at wind-arrested edge of flight one flies caught forever turning in his almond eyes.