72” x 48”, oil on canvas

I placed myself within the unravelling images.

The red and bronze gates of the fabled city.

The pagoda built to house the sutras

That still rises above its walled courtyard.

Scholar trees whose leaves whisper above me.

Perhaps there is still some lesson

To be heard in the sighing boughs.

I left my name on this painting.

The leaves are pale but they do not fall.

Temple Ruins Park is a record of the time I spent in Xi’an literally in the shadow of The Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The pagoda is famous throughout China. It was built in 648 during the Tang Dynasty to house the newly translated Buddhist sutras brought from India. The pagoda is therefore a shrine to Buddhism and to translation. It is located in Temple Ruins Park where a few fragments of Tang Dynasty walls can still be seen.