READ A SAMPLE

 

	Contents Painting Trees When Everything is Possible Home Place In the Shadow of the Groundhog Dream Mountain Trade-Off Small Stuff Maps Lucretius From the Pages of the Geographic Looking for Bensonhurst Brouhaha! Watermark The Mystery of Picasso Snowflakes Hanging On String Quartet A Matter of Faith Windows Saturdays in September A Law of Nature Woman on the Beach Legacy June Walk My Mother’s Ghost Souvenirs   Painting Trees . . . From the Mustard Seed Manual of Painting   The first thing to avoid Jao Tzu-jan said is a crowded, ill-arranged composition. Always aim for clarity. Distinguish far and near and be sure to indicate the source of water. Old trees are like hermits whose purity shows in their appearance. Those which have clung to steep cliffs for many years are lean and gnarled and their bones protrude. Jao says it is good to vary the pattern: Let some roots be hidden and some exposed, for if all roots are shown They will look like the teeth of a saw. When Everything is Possible   In the cleft of the seasons just when winter ends the shoulder of the mountain wears winter white. Unannounced the wild young iris push upward, forsythia waves its careless branches, the sweet sharp wind sweeps up the valley tempts fate taking bets on an early spring.   Home Place   When I climbed the big tree stump looked over waist-high weeds past saplings and cornfield to where the mountain scored the far horizon I heard whisperings, watched clouds drawn in great rhythms west to east, saw fierce sunset pink beyond the western ridge. Then I staked the corners of my house between oak and hickory; the heap of old chimney stone and tangle of roses placed history squarely on my side. It was like walking the rough earth with a dowser, waiting for the willow fork to twist my fist earthward, insisting I dig here.