Gary Snyder Poem from The New Yorker

I love this poem by Gary Snyder about this painting. -walt











Mu Ch’i’s Persimmons
by Gary Snyder

There is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake.

—Dōgen, November, 1242.


On a back wall down the hall

lit by a side glass door

is the scroll of Mu Ch’i’s great
sumi painting, “Persimmons”

The wind-weights hanging from the
axles hold it still.

The best in the world, I say,
of persimmons.

Perfect statement of emptiness
no other than form

the twig and the stalk still on,
the way they sell them in the
market even now.

The original’s in Kyoto at a
lovely Rinzai temple where they
show it once a year

this one’s a perfect copy from Benrido
I chose the mounting elements myself
with the advice of the mounter

I hang it every fall.

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