“A door through the crevice of which the moonshine peeps in”*

Ma is empty space filled with meaning

from Japan’s history. Mountain landscapes

traced in black shadows, gray seas, creams yearning

toward cherry blossoms and sketched through shapes

unfinished. Hundreds of hushed words, a thousand

withheld brushstrokes, stories told in silence,

a lone hourglass paused in shifting its sand

from one life to the next. Japan is dense

and ancient, a rocky island chain lush

with the secrets of millennia. Art

is the greatest mystery of all, flush

with centuries of lust and hate and the start

of something fresh. My inheritance, you see—

I feel Ma, know Ma, hold Ma within me.

* * *

*Quote attributed to Bernhard Karlgren.

**Sumi-e is the Japanese art of ink painting.