Yi Kyu Bo.
Studying a painting by the artist monk Sol-go.
He built this hermit house amid the pines
And here he lived his life, alone with trees.
Each breath he drew was fragrant with their breath.
He understood their speech. Their silences
Brought him the wisdom that the sages sought.
His ears were opened to the sound that dwells
Beyond the rim of silence.
Thus he heard
Music which has no voice for lesser men.
His eyes perceived forms beyond creature forms.
Day after day I sit and gaze until,
Drunken with beauty, wonder seizes me
That ink and brush could ever bring such life,
Repeating through ten thousand silences,
The hidden things this master learned from trees.
How dark these hills! How dim that lonely shore
Where serpents slowly move towards the tide
That, swinging back, has left them stripped and bare.
Terrible monsters rest their bony forms
Against the crags, their heads against the sky.
Mysterious faces flicker through the trees
As daylight changes in this silent room
And night brings shadows to the pictured hills.
Among those awful rocks a dragon wails,
Will he come forth, with moonlight, from the trees?