Lightly, as not to disturb the paper.
Gently, as not to anger the language gods.
First, a slow stroke, then a curve,
then lift the brush and think
if perhaps the black is alive,
if perhaps it will leap back
like a hungry tiger,
like the electric signs of John Street,
falling, tumbling from the clouds.

Three invisible arts converge here.
I've been told
the chess-piece character I am copying
is a horse. No one will say
what kind. I imagine
a black horse flying under
a quiet great wall of hoarfrost night,
delivering a scholar of the Tang Dynasty
to Changan, where Li Bai once wrote,
"And there are other earths and skies than these"—
words, decrypted words that rest
dangerously on the edge
of the language of an art
I understand only as it fades,
leaving characters,
the blending of a few strokes;
paint on a piece of round wood.

Across from me on a red bench laughs a
a newspaper, and the Chinese man behind it
with his hat, gray whiskers, and brown coat,
reads it, like I can not.
I stare at the characters like hieroglyphics,
wishing for a cereal box decoder ring,
losing myself in the forbidden world.
He sees. He knows. He calls
me over and smiles like Buddha.
It is a lost art, he confirms,
you must recover it—
first, you make the strokes, meld them together,
then you know the meaning;
you understand.
What is there to understand, I ask.
I cannot tell, he says,
folding up his news
lightly, as not to disturb his paper,
gently, as not to anger the language gods.