This was the moment that demanded perfect composure, absolute control. Before him was a single sheet of rice paper, purest white, and now his hand held the brush poised. He was waiting for that instant when his senses clicked into alignment, when the feel of the brush merged with his mind, much the way a samurai's _katana _blade must become an extension of his own reflexes.
Although he would stroke only a few kanji characters, scarcely enough for a telex or a memo, the moment required discipline acquired through decades of practice. His Zen-style calligraphy allowed for no hesitation, no retouching. It must be dashed off with a spontaneity that was, in itself, part of the art. As with the swordsman, there could be no time for conscious thought, merely the powerful stroke guided by intuition. No decision that confronted him throughout a business day would demand half so much mental control, inner resolve.
Just then, at the far end of the pond, the first sun flickered through the wisteria. Suddenly, without his consciously knowing the exact moment had arrived, as a Zen archer's arrow must release itself of its own will, his hand struck. The dark tip of
the brush pirouetted down the paper, starting at the left and laying down a mere five lines, twenty-two syllables.
He sighed, leaned back, and reached for the cup of green tea that rested beside him on the polished boards. The verse was in an archaic style, a few syllables longer than a haiku, modeled on an eight- hundred-year-old work by a court poet of the Heian era. The strokes were perfectly nuanced, the flow of the brush precise, the intuitive strength as natural as a waterfall.
Noda drained his tea, then rose to go back inside. His antique house was tastefully "empty": its _tatami_-floored rooms, measured in multiples of those standard three-by-six reed mats, were barren, a museum to times past. They also were open to each other, their sliding doors, _fusuma_, being pushed wide. The walls, too, were vacant expanses of white plaster with only an occasional mounted six-fold screen depicting poetry parties of the Heian era, that courtly civilization portrayed in The Tale of Genji. And there were no overhead lights, merely an occasional cypress _andon_ floor lamp to augment the pastel glow of the rice-paper shop windows.