Happy National Poetry Month!

On Reading Chinese Painted Scrolls

You must read Chinese painted scrolls from right to left, from up to down,
As if the scene were written itself, a poem in the most
Elaborate calligraphy. For in Chinese, tree is written,
Or drawn, as a tree, and some say, when read
(From right to left, from up to down) sounds like a tree sounds.

From the right—the beginning—the hills are covered with grass
And there are a few trees colored by distance.
The homes of the small mountain villages are simple: only
Black ink and paper. The beams are thin one-stroke lines
To raise the white roofs. These next trees however
Are wrought in detail to the frozen waves of bark, to the uneven leaves,
(Some are light and smooth and others are dark brush strokes dashed on the silk).
But as the painting continues and the hills and trees focus in fore

And backgrounds, you realize that even the town was empty.
There was no one. Suddenly, rapids, with their rocks
And tiny waterfalls split the earth; a river breaks
Through the painting and emerges from inland pressures.
The river calms, the story changes now for
A solitary sailor pushes his small boat with the painting
From right to left and looks ahead at—beyond a small island—
The inky black waves which thicken into the pale horizon.

-EWW