When I was still more a girl than a woman,
my hair hanging in two braids to frame my face,
my mind then still as clear as any unmarked canvas,
I took the materials my parents bought for me
and went to a park beside the winding Liu River
in Guangxi to sketch what I saw.

At this time when any grown man seemed old to me,
an old man who was passing by stopped to watch.
We talked and gradually he began to teach me how
to draw. Bridges. People. Trees reflected in the Liu.
The river's own rapid ever-renewing and flowing waters.
Like the river, time passed.

Youth and age sharing, we began a joint painting.
A raucous hover of crows alighting on an old tree
wreathed in dead vines. Cooking smoke wafting
over a bridge and the rushing water beneath it. The
dimming light of a setting sun about to drop below
the horizon in the west. Cold night approaching.

Once done, we parted. Before that, beside my name,
he added "Old friend Zhong Qixiang." Years later, I
read how "Zhong Qixiang, a Master Chinese painter," had
visited Guangxi. Later still, a grown woman, I read that
he had died. Years and decades have passed since he
last painted. His memory now dimmed but not yet set.