#O104: The Inner Pattern

Landscape on canvas paper. Also an invented landscape. I start with a wash of thin Raw Sienna into which I wash Red Oxide with random wild strokes. I then take a cloth and wipe away some shapes and stand back. If I am lucky, a landscape like this one steps forward…

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A poem by T’ao Ch’ien, translated by David Hinton:

UNTITLED 
I couldn’t want another life. Tending 
fields and mulberries— it’s my true 

calling. I’ve never failed it, and still,
against hunger and cold, there’s only 

hull and chaff. I never wanted more 
than a full stomach. All I’ve asked is 

a little rice, heavy clothes for winter 
and open-weaves for summer heat. 

But I haven’t even managed that. O, 
all this grief cuts deep. And character 

is fate. If you’re simpleminded, life’s 
ways elude you. It’s the inner pattern: 

no one’s likely to change it. But then, 
I delight in even a single cup of wine.

David Hinton. 
Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology (p. 119). 
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

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