Watteau (After the Chinese)

20 December 2007. Winter light, sun, long shadows, streets wet with last night's rain.

Ahn Dong Ni, hermit painter of the Lijiang. Perhaps you know him? Osmanthus blossoms in late fall, water buffalo and phoenix-tail bamboo. The cormorant dipping for fish in silver green-gray waters and the mountains of Guilin hovering in the mist. Fields with remnants of the harvest--wandering rows of rice on browned earth, the stalks tended and tied, each by hand. A child's braids. Effie just ahead, on her bicycle, turns suddenly and smiles, as she shows me her home. Do you know the poems of Po Chü-i? His small house with pond alongside--just as it is here, perhaps. Hint of winter in the still-warm air, farmer's smoke at dusk...

Thank you, Mao-Yun, for the name--which can mean everything... And David: "For water clarifies the spirit, no less than a perfect friend..."