Thinking About ‘Thinking About Spring in a House by the Torrent’ - Sharon Hoffmann

Thinking About Thinking About Spring in a House by the Torrent

-- Gong Xian (Chinese painter, 1618-1689)

I keep looking at what isn't there. 

I don't care 

that on this spill of silk 

with dot, stroke, wash 

of watercolor brush, 

Gong Xian makes mountains 

push towards sky, 

that blooming cherry and persimmon 

crowd the ridge, 

or that the bridge 

curves in a crescent 

over the snow-fed stream, 

or even that the thatched house seems 

as natural in the landscape 

as the trees. 

What holds me is the air 

and thick mist rising 

where the torrent rushes 

through the steep ravines. 

No brush has touched the surface here. 

For water and wind, 

the artist gives us absence, 

pure but not simple: 

white space, white sound. 

And in the house, 

someone who is not revealed 

is thinking about spring: 

How abundance makes us ache 

for what we cannot have,

how we can be blessed 

by what has been withheld.

Originally published by Stone Country, 1979

Sharon Hoffmann is a writer based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. Publications include The Hooghly Review, New York Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives (Harvard University Press), Paddler Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, Letters, Wild Roof, Sho, and other magazines. Awards include fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs, three Pushcart nominations and a nomination for Best Spiritual Literature.