Preparing for the Song

Preparing for the Song: A Self Portrait


As the Tang Dynasty (618 AD – 907 AD) disintegrated, the concept of withdrawal into the natural world became a major thematic focus of poets and painters. Faced with the failure of the human order, learned men sought permanence within the natural world, retreating into the mountains to find a sanctuary from the chaos of dynastic collapse. They were preparing for the Song Dynasty (960 AD – 1279 AD)



It was that year
when I had failed to love,

the mystery of my portrait
being washed over with ink,

the stone, becoming monochrome,
being watered down by fine hairs,

the sweeping across my face,
neck, shoulders, poems.

This won’t last a lifetime,
the stare into absence, the need for color:

we’ve become two bodies
in motion, moving apart,

then back together—trapped by the seconds
only landscape can frame.

I trace the long lines
and the indentations that define your hip;

here we are, again, naked, almost human,
inside the dream of white space.

--Pilar