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of artists. No, no, she wouldn’t. She

wouldn’t live like these girls. Bicycling

away rain or shine to run an errand

for her artist. Coming back with cigarettes, food

supplies, art supplies, coal, wood,

money. They aren’t so very communal;

each woman serves just her one

boyfriend. We’re back to the days of

James Joyce and Henry Miller, women

living to serve genius. Taña would organize

a cultural revolution. Girls, you

can be the artists of your dreams. She’d

see to it that this village dine together.

Everyone cooks for all. Give dinner

parties, be civilized. You ALL come.

Walt Whitman: “I will not have a single

person slighted or left away.” But Taña

and these artists same-same: Once they regard

a thing, it becomes treasure. Surprise:

I’m not bored sitting day after day.

I’m old, worked for a lifetime, time

to rest. Chinese know about working

hard, and give rest as a gift. “Sit.

Sit,” they invite the guest. “Sit, la.”

You take the crate or stool or the one chair

(Chinese invented chairs), saying,

“No, no, you sit, la,

don’t stand on ceremony, thank you,

thank you.” Purple Beard crouches, peers,

takes a kung fu step forward,

a tai chi step back, moves himself and

his metal easel right beside his subject,

paints, paints, backs away, easel

and all, paints some more. Turns his back

on the model and the picture, holds up a hand

mirror, and looks at their images in reverse,

turns around quick—catches something—

paints it down. As if I am

hard to see. The artist is doing mighty

feats of concentration to hold me real.

Across the courtyard is a south-facing

window, dark inside, nobody lives there.

One day, the window is utterly gone.

Nary a jamb or corner or glint remains.

The explanation has got to be that tree;

it leafed out, and put the window out

of sight. Must’ve mislooked, imagined

a window through the wavering spaces between

glittery leaves. Then, another day,

the leaves disappear, the tree disappears.

A green tree? A red tree? Gone.

And there’s the window again. Next to the window

is a gray wall. There are no shadows

on it because no tree, no branches.

Only light, light that changes, changes

with the moving day. So beautiful, the non-

repeating universe, I could watch it forever.

So beautiful, the nothingness of the ground.

Suddenly, the artist picks up the painting,

turns it around, thrusts it toward its subject—

“Finis!”—and has him see his portrayal. Omigod!

So much strain. So many wrinkles.

Read the wrinkles. I’m straining might and main

to carry out ideals. I have ideals.

I didn’t lose them along with my young self.

But I try too hard, the strain shows.

Not graceful under fire. I ended

the war in Viet Nam. I am determined,

we shall stop warring in Iraq,

and Afghanistan. Well, not

the fun-loving monkey but the world-carrying

citizen, okay. Wittman leaves

the art village, leaves the picture for history.

SPIRIT VILLAGE

He betakes himself to yet one more village.

I need him to go to an all-male place,

a monastery, to make sure that Shao Lin

or Han Shan or Water Margin sanctuary

exists. That the Chinese religion lives.

He locates and climbs Su Doc Mountain.

(Su Doc, Think Virtue, Hong

Ting Ting’s father’s name.) Through

the fog and mist of dragons breathing, following

a trail, possibly made by deer, he comes

to a ramshackle mew, a temple. No one

answers his knock. He opens the door, and enters

a dark room. Silent men and a few

little boys are eating supper. Someone

hands over a rice bowl and chopsticks,

and gestures eat eat. The food

is leftovers of leftovers. Even

the child monks practice eating meditation,

mindfully selecting some unrecognizable

brown vegetable, chewing it many times,

tasting it, identifying it, thinking about

and appreciating who grew it and cooked it, grateful

to them, and to the sun and the rain and the soil,

and all that generates and continues all.

After eating (food still left over),

the monks sit enjoying stomachs full,

holding the segue from this present moment

to