A Brief History of Landscape Painting, and: Forbidden

Abstract

A Brief History of Landscape Painting, and: Forbidden Lynne Knight (bio) A Brief History of Landscape Painting An ancient Chinese emperor once called allthe artists to court, hoping one would createthe perfect landscape. For almost a yearthey labored. Then one dawn they gatheredin the palace, unrolled their scrolls & waited.A rustling of silks as the emperor pressed his ear to tree or sky. Finally, he left the hall,calling back, Those birds all sang too sweetlyor too long. That night he ordered the scrollsburned in the courtyard. By dawn, when smokestreamed like mist from a river, thousandsof birds lay dead. The groundskeepers ran for their spades. But when they returned,the yard was empty, save for music so sweetthose who heard it began to dance. No onestopped to eat or sleep. By the next moon,the music had spread through the countryside.Farmers abandoned their plows to begin their own dance. Seed held. Rivers halted.Everything stilled like landscape, except the wildfigures, dancing & dancing, the old emperoramong them, silks & bones whirling outbeyond the material, leaving nothing but willows,sky, quick strokes of birds past hearing. [End Page 64] Forbidden They looked so long into each otherI sometimes had to look away Or sometimes they'd be sitting side by side& he'd put his hand in her long hair& I'd watch it lift, fall,lift, fall,all the while he was talking & she had her handon his thigh, maybe, or at her throat,where I imagined she would hold itin the calm after coming She was beautiful, thin & soft breastedTheir children had names that sounded like waterSometimes she'd go out on the porch & call to them& it would be like hearing water run clearover rocksOnce he went out behind her & ran his handsalong her thighs, up to her breasts,where they stoppedWhen the children came down from the woodshe stood there like that, talking to themShe leaned her head back on his shoulder I know you are impatient to hear it did not last,it was too perfect, I felt betrayed the day I heardthey had split upBut nothing like that happenedThey went on as they always hadThe children grew, the years began to tell,& whenever I would see them I would feelthe same insistent heat [End Page 65] One day she came alonewhen she knew my lover would be goneThis was early on, their youngest girl still a babyI was pregnant with my own, just beginning to showShe spooned brown sugar in her tea, no creamHer eyes were green like the sea after rain I've decided to tell you something she saidYou & no other because something in your face haunts meI love someone else, someone impossibleHe doesn't even live in this countryShe laughed, a terrible laugh, but not like weepingThen the baby started to fuss & we went into the roomwhere we'd laid her to sleep on a sea of green cushionsI'll feed her she said I won't be longI waited, thinking she would come back & tell methings women tell each other about the forbidden But she never mentioned it againWe had more tea, the day went down in ashover the sea, & over the yearsI understood she was transforming her husbandinto the one she longed for, her lifeinto another life, even the way she said his name,even the way she watched me watch her [End Page 66] Lynne Knight Lynne Knight has published four full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks, along with a translation, with the author, of Ito Naga's Je sais. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals, and her awards include a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, an nea grant, and Rattle Poetry Prize. She lives in Berkeley, California. Copyright © 2015 University of Nebraska Press