In breath the stroke
out breath the resting
brush. At each ingress
you push: delve deeper
press, into bamboo’s
clustered crush
climb across the vein
of winter’s eye and
wrest the furious
persimmon’s blush
Outside the snow gave
Manhattan its own hush
and slush. Dirty grey and
feathered as memory’s
sudden rush. Thirty
five summers later
you are still here at
the corner of then
and now, nearly
ninety but still feisty
forbidding all
help as you hang
eyes of koans
lush lunar suns
Dedicated to Sensei Koho Yamamoto, my Sumi- E teacher.
out breath the resting
brush. At each ingress
you push: delve deeper
press, into bamboo’s
clustered crush
climb across the vein
of winter’s eye and
wrest the furious
persimmon’s blush
Outside the snow gave
Manhattan its own hush
and slush. Dirty grey and
feathered as memory’s
sudden rush. Thirty
five summers later
you are still here at
the corner of then
and now, nearly
ninety but still feisty
forbidding all
help as you hang
eyes of koans
lush lunar suns
Dedicated to Sensei Koho Yamamoto, my Sumi- E teacher.