The Last Masterpiece

When I woke up on the morning of the last day, my thoughts went immediately back to the conversation of the night before. Did he really say that he was looking for a reason to die? It turned out to be a joke, only it didn't seem like a joke initially. It was a good set-up, right? He suckered me in then clobbered me with the punchline. Or did he start by saying something true, then second guess himself when he saw how I was reacting? Maybe the punchline was a last-minute diversion. Or maybe he was kidding on the square?

Mr. Yoshimura was up before me on the two previous mornings at his home, but not this morning. We had been up pretty late the night before and maybe pushed it too far. I figured it was good for him to sleep; there was plenty for me to do, perusing the books in his library and poking around among the jumble of plants in his greenhouse. Then I walked outside the house a bit because we had been inside all the time and I was starting to feel cramped in there.  The day was gray and damp, the air was cold, as it seemed to be all the while of my visit. Time went by. I went back inside and just when I was starting to get nervous, Mr. Yoshimura came shuffling through the house. He was walking slowly, looking unsteady. He mumbled some apologies about getting up so late, saying that he wasn't feeling well. He didn't look well, that's for sure.

Mr. Yoshimura started talking about the day's project, which was to be a large group planting of American hornbeam. Watching how he was behaving, I began having doubts about our planned activities. I suggested that perhaps we didn't need to bother with the hornbeam planting. I spoke carefully, trying to sound casual about it, taking care not to say anything that might offend. I pointed out that it was almost noon already and I needed to leave in the early evening in order to get to my sister's apartment by the hour I had told her I'd arrive. There wouldn't be time to do the kind of large-scale forest planting we had discussed. I suggested maybe we just look at the plant material I had brought along and talk about what might be done with it another day. I had brought with me more than twenty little American hornbeam trees, three years old from seed, individually potted in six-inch plastic mum pans. The intended hornbeam forest planting was to be big and it was a big deal. That's why it was scheduled for the final day, to be the grand finale of the study trip, and I had been looking forward to it. Now it didn't seem such a good idea to push the old master too far.

Mr. Yoshimura waved away what I was saying. He wanted to see the hornbeams, which were lined up outside on a workbench on a back porch. We went outside to look and I was concerned that he wasn't dressed for the cold. When I admonished him for that, he paid me no mind, instead asking if I had a pot to use for the planting. I had brought along three ceramic tray containers — low-profile, good quality Japanese stoneware ovals, the kind traditionally used for forest plantings. Mr. Yoshimura looked at those a moment, then said, "Come with me!" At this he became animated to a surprising degree, scurrying in short, rapid steps toward the greenhouse. I followed. The greenhouse was old, crowded with plants and looking a little neglected. Along a wall at the rear of it was a large pile of assorted disused items, stacked up almost to the roof. The pile looked precarious as could be, like a good sneeze might bring it all crashing down. Mr. Yoshimura started haphazardly pulling things out of this junkheap, rooting around to get at an item apparently buried at the bottom, before finally finding what he was after and hauling it out. He stood there triumphantly holding an irregularly shaped piece of plywood about five-feet long. "Inspiration!" he announced. "We will create masterpiece — ON WOOD!"

Say what? I was immediately dubious, never having seen a bonsai planting on a piece of plywood. At that juncture in my career I hadn't seen all that many bonsai in-person, but I had seen the national collection in Washington, DC, and I had seen a couple of bonsai shows, including the World Bonsai Convention in 1993. I had also looked at literally thousands of bonsai images in books and magazines, and never once did I recall seeing a bonsai planting on a piece of plywood. I had seen bonsai on marble slabs and flat stones, but never on wood and certainly not on plywood. Frankly, the idea seemed crazy to me. I didn't want to be rude, though. "Oh no," I said, "that's too nice. I'm sure you had something else planned for it! Let's use one of the containers I brought with me."

Once again, Mr. Yoshimura waved away what I said. He began toting the big piece of wood back to the house, so I offered to help and he let me carry it. Once we were back in the crowded room where we usually worked, the plywood slab was put in place on the big round turntable. The old teacher then produced another of his well-worn training tools — a collection of artificial evergreen trees of assorted heights, none more than a foot tall. These were all free-standing on individual bases. The little Christmas trees were used to practice composition of group plantings, so Mr. Yoshimura had me design several different forests on the piece of plywood. He critiqued what I did, then made an arrangement out of them himself. He then drew on a piece of paper the shape of the plywood slab as it appeared from an overhead view and began making a planting diagram.

Mr. Yoshimura's energy level, having been temporarily boosted by his plywood inspiration, soon began to flag. Once again his faltering movements and the expression on his face suggested he was feeling poorly. He instructed me to go out to where the hornbeams were and begin preparing them for planting by knocking off as much of the medium as possible from the root masses. Then he disappeared to his bedroom to lie down and rest. The twenty-something little trees had been grown originally for possible landscape use, so they had never been root-pruned and it took some time to get all of them out of their pots and essentially stripped of soil. I finished the job before Mr. Yoshimura returned, though, and was once again left idle and wondering if my host was alright. When he finally reappeared it was well on into mid-afternoon. Now time really was an issue because who knew how many hours it would take to do such a large project and I had a schedule to keep. Once more I beseeched Mr. Yoshimura to let go of the idea of making the hornbeam forest, and once more he ignored me. Settling into his chair he began arranging the little trees on the wooden slab. He moved them about and tried different ones in different places, feeling for the right combination of movement and form. He smiled faintly as his hands worked. "This," he said with far away softness, "is the only thing that takes my mind off my problems."

There wasn't much conversation this time. Mr. Yoshimura bent to his task, absorbed in the work. I asked if he'd mind me taking pictures and he said he didn't care, so I did that for a little while. Otherwise, I just watched. I didn't ask questions and I didn't offer to help, I just sat and watched the old artist working -- slowly, methodically, with deliberate purpose, his hands not strong but steady in the familiarity of their movements, his eyes placid but fixed on the subject before him, the image of a forest slowly taking tree-by-tree shape, changing shape, shifting, gradually coming into focus. Hours passed. He worked and I watched, and I knew in that moment that I was witness to something great. Not that the piece of work — the planting — was great, although there was reason to think it might be, but that the work itself was great. The man himself — the artist — was an old shell, worn down to almost nothing more than weary flesh and bone, but through him still ran the current of creation. It was the act of creation that was great, that was the work, and through the old man the timeless impulse of artistic creativity once more flowed, as it had so many times before for so many years. And I was there. I watched it happen.

It was about nine at night, long past dark, already an hour past the time I was due at my sister's, when Mr. Yoshimura finally put the last touches on the forest he had made. He must have been empty by then. I think he must have poured every last ounce of strength and concentration he had into finishing this big job. I wonder if in that moment he knew it was the last time he would ever create something so bold, so grand. Mr. Yoshimura had set out to make a masterpiece and, from the distance of thirty years later, it can be said with certainty that he succeeded. It would be the last time he did.