Excerpt from Carry Me Across the Water

"Here on Aguni, I have constructed a passable rendition of the world. The island, and my life where I have hidden myself, I will describe to you in another letter. Perhaps it is different from how you imagine: after dark, I venture into the open for food and water, wary at every step. The soldiers are still about, even at night, but at least the snakes, which can drop upon a man from the tree limbs, are in their torpor then. And I am able, miraculously, and thanks to the efforts of carrying such items at great pains into the jungle, to read the poems of Basho and to study the prints of Gaho and Hogai, as well as to continue my own development in oils, a few of which I have carried here with me as well (thinned with kerosene, which is in adequate supply). This indeed is wondrous for me: not just to be able to work -- and there are no distractions at all, here, my divine Umi -- but to spend my days with these three great teachers of our heritage. Perhaps I will one day be able to tell you what I have learned of the eye and the romance it carries on, quietly and in a most halting manner, with the veiled beauty of the world."