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How I love Hokusai, the peasant who painted
Buddha big enough to eat a horse,
impromptu,
Then switched brushes, and sketched two sparrows,
So tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see.
Expressionist, he threw a paper door down,
dipped a rooster's five-clawed feet in
red ink,
And set him running--Maple Leaves in Autumn.
93 houses he had, 50 false names, dozens
Of bankruptcies--wood carver,
Errand boy, calendar-seller, pepper salesman,
At 60 he knuckled down to art,
At 78, burned out of his house, he
shrugged,
And rebuilt, with a sign warning
visitors,
"No compliments. No gifts."
Red lava burning up the cone
Melts the last snow, soars past trees,
Humbles the low, circling forest.
Who but a peasant would plunk
This giant at the center of so many prints?
No fake crags, no Chinese mist, just a big bald mountain.
The clouds ride on by, regular as
furrows,
Foregrounding the colossus,
sharpening its edge,
Painted over by this heroic self advertiser,
The earthy artist, Mount Fuji.
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