Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Analect 2.165x



18 September 2007. Gray cloud veils hide touches of blue, unexpected mass of Albany Hill to the west... Cars divulge their student guests--itinerants all, backpacks and untried clothes--each new costume a blaze of youth, dashing, unsure... Girl in red top with long sleeves, slightly lighter carnation skirt, a little short, red mixed with white, tiny tattooed bracelet on right ankle, she looks back over her shoulder through sandy blond waves, all aware... Boy with intent expression, lifting hood of trunk--he reaches for handle of dark fiberglass case--a guitar. Asian woman, a little older, pushing cart of metal trays along edge of sloped driveway, balancing with uneven steps...

The scholar painters. Zhu Haonian's "Portrait of Tang Yin after Qiu Ying and Zhou Chen," 1851. Figure in dark cap, seated on a rock, one leg draped casually over the other. Reddish shoes, hands in sleeves, hidden in the folds of long garment. Impeccable line, mirroring elongated sheet of scroll. On bare wall, the paper catching every shift in New York light. Indeterminate age, looking back at the past, remembered in part...

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