Forbidden City

from “Mount Fuji” A draughtsman’s draughtsman, Hokusai at 70 thought he’d begun to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, of the way plants grow, hoped that by 90 he’d havepenetrated to their essential nature. And more, by 100, I will have reached the stagewhere every dot, every mark I make will bealive. You always loved that resolve, you’d repeat joyfully—Hokusai’s utterance of faith in work’s possibilities, its reward, that, at 130, he’d perhaps have learned to draw. ...