Sung Kan.
I gazed all day upon my master’s painting.
I read his poems far into the night.
Just before dawn my eyes perceived this truth—
A poem is a picture turned to song.
A picture is a poem whence the words
Have taken life and fled into the clouds.
How shall succeeding ages name my master—
Artist or poet? From the clear, still depths
Of his great mind such sparkling treasures pour—
Poems and pictures like the tinted spray
Cascading from a grottoed mountain pool.
Today he lifts his brush. One swift sure stroke,
One breathless gesture, disciplined, austere—
Then, from his hand, a sunlit river flows,
Gaunt rocks arise, green banks and ancient trees
That sweep the water with their twisted boughs.
Gazing all day on pictures such as these
I think the Master Chong No has returned,
That you, my lord, were he in days gone by.
A thousand poems sing within my mind.
But colors fade with age. Rich tones grow dull
When touched by rain or smoke of charcoal fires.
It may be that, at last, your fame will live
In poems which are pictures turned to song.
Age cannot dim the fire of jewelled words
Nor steal the scent of breezes that will blow
Down through the weary ages from your soul.