The distinctness of shapes fools us often
into believing what we are seeing.
Have eidetic faith in clouds
and embrace heavenly paper
as you would a warm day in December.
I once painted a psychedelic nightmare wave
about to crash onto a horse and its rider
and which ended up on the cover of a book.
It hangs out with other unframed efforts,
propped up against the side of a wardrobe in my bedroom.
Hokusai was my kind of artist.
Summoned by an Emperor,
who wanted him to paint at court,
he took two chickens with him.
How does he paint? With two chickens, apparently.
Having submerged the first chicken’s feet in paint,
he dragged the feet
along the unscrolled length of a piece of rice paper,
then covered the second chicken’s feet in paint
and let the bird walk wherever she wanted.
When the chicken was finished –
How did he know the chicken was finished? –
he performed his bow and presented
Autumn Leaves Falling in the Yangtze River
to his imperial patron.
(This story is mentioned in ‘Tao: The Watercourse Way’ by
Alan Watts)
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