- Vol. 06
- Chapter 02
Image by Dong Chensheng
Suiboku-ga
It took years for the master to teach me,
his inside student, the delicate art
of balancing the brush: how to channel
darkness and light through felt, stone and ink wash
to render orchid, mountains and mantis,
as if divining a part of myself.
In time, I learnt to find the shadow line
engrained in paper, like trailing a path
through my childhood forest without
causing any sound to bleed through the trees.