“In museums and through books, I became aware of how the energies of mist, white water, rock formations, air swirls – a chaotic universe where everything is in place – are so much a part of the East Asian painter’s world”.
~ Gary Synder, in Mountains and Rivers without End (1996)
The title of noted American poet Gary Synder’s epic anthology comes from a 17th century painting by the Qing dynasty artist, Lu Yuan shown above. The opening poem in Synder’s collection evokes images of the atmospheric landscape so ably captured by Lu Yuan. Here are excerpts of the poem:
Endless Streams and Mountains by Gary Synder
Clearing the mind and sliding in
to that created space,
a web of waters streaming over rocks,
air misty but not raining,
seeing this land from a boat on a lake
or a broad slow river
coasting by.
A trail of climbing stairsteps forks upstream.
Big ranges lurk behind these rugged little outcrops.
A man hunched over, sitting in a log
another stands above him, lifts a staff,
a third, with a roll of mats or a lute looks on;
a bit offshore, two people in a boat.
The trail goes far inland,
somewhere back around a bay,
lost in distant foothill slopes
and back again
at a village on the beach
and someone’s fishing.
Hills beyond rivers, willows in a swamp,
a gentle valley reaching far inland.
The watching boat has floated off the page.