Hollyhocks and Blue Clouds
Werner Drewes

The Cuckoo Calls from the Bamboo Grove

The cuckoo calls from the bamboo grove.
Cherry blossoms litter the path.
A girl walks under the full moon,
Trailing her silk skirts in the grass.

- Anonymous (Six Dynasties)
(Translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

Die ferne Insel (The Distant Island), 1906-08
Oskar Kokoschka

Cup of Coffee and Cigarette, 1950
John Gutmann

Coffee, 1959
Richard Diebenkorn

Gray Room

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl-
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you . . .
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.

Wallace Stevens