Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PAINTING OF MA-LIN, by CALE YOUNG RICE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PAINTING OF MA-LIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Just because you painted it so, ma-lin
Last Line: Give wings to the heart!
Subject(s): Beauty; Birds; Death; Life; Paintings And Painters; Dead, The


Just because you painted it so, Ma-lin,
The rock and the pine-tree springing from it and the water,
And the sampan half fading round
The dark of the rock toward the high cliff
That dimly shadows the distance,
Where birds are only wings,
I know that you loved vanishing things.

And I know you felt as the sampan passed on the river flowing
That life as a wind in a dream is ever going,
And that its strange sad evanescence
Alone brings beauty's presence.

And I know that the lean of the pine out over the water
Meant to your sense, as now to mine,
The mute mysterious immanence
Of death in the world;
And that, because of death's suffusion,
You longed to think all things Illusion.

Yes, Ma-Lin, brother of mine, I know these things,
Though a thousand years have flown since then
Under the bridge of the sky,
And though no longer you look on it, but I.
For graciously thus does the magic of art
Give wings to the heart!





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