Crystals blow in from the west. Remote, the plains open where one could stretch out forever. He goes to his cot in afternoon. By four o'clock, the footpath appears he'd pondered for days. Tracking the followers, he paints their mountain retreat, dim as a cave with a bell at its heart.
Few leaves hang coldly to the maple.
His wrist moves as a guide to the snow. The whole month of August he musters whiteness onto boiled and beaten silk, and hears the stone monks' chant. Frost on a ledge honors that voice. His own name he sets aside, the hut abandoned by autumn. All rights reserved.