I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (5 page)

On the grass in a city park, our male traveller

feeling his lone hobo self, laid

his body down with backpack for pillow.

In San Francisco, it was 2 o’clock the night

before. Going west from California’s

shores, jumping forward in time, he’d arrived

at the house of maternity, the land of migrations.

Sleeping in public, jet-lagged, soul

not caught up with body, body

loose from soul, body trusted itself to

the grass, the ground, the earth, the good earth,

and rested in that state where dream is wake,

wake is dream. Conscious you are conscious.

Climb—fly—high and higher, and know:

Now / Always, all connects to all.

All that is is good. His ancestresses—

PoPo Grandma and Ma,

so long in America—are here, the Center.

Expired, Chinese people leave go of

cloudsouls that fly to this place.

Breathe, and be breathed. The air smells

of farawayness. Seas. Trash. Old

fish. The Chinese enjoy this smell,

fragrant, the
hong
in Hong Kong, Fragrant Harbor.

Yes, something large, dark, quiet,

receptive—Yin—is breathing, breathing me

as I am breathing her. My individual

mind, body, cloudsoul melds

with the Yin. Mother. I’m home. But

stir, and the Land of Women goes. Wittman

arose to bass drums of engines—multiple

pulses and earth-deep throbs. Forces

of rushing people. Monday morning go-

to-work people. The City. (The late riser

has missed the tai chi, the kung fu,

the chi kung. While he was sleeping, the artists

of the chi, mostly women, Chinese

women, were moving, dancing the air / the wind /

energy / life, and getting the world turning.

They’d segued from pose to pose—spread

white-crane wings, repulse monkey,

grasp bird by tail, high pat

on horse, stand like rooster on one leg,

snake-creep down, return to mountain.

They played with the chi, drawing circles in the sky,

lifting earth to sky, pulling sky

to earth, swirling the controllable universe.

Then walked off to do their daily ordinary tasks.)

Wittman, non-moneymaker, fled

the financial district. Already dressed,

the same clothes asleep and awake, he merged

with a crowdstream, and boarded a westbound

train. Go deep in-country.

Find China. Hong Kong is not China.

The flow of crowd stopped, jammed inside

the train. Wittman was one among the mass

that shoved and was shoved onto the area

over the coupling between cars. They

would ride standing pressed, squashed,

breathing one another’s breath, hoisting

and holding loads—Panasonic and Sony

ACs—above heads. The train

started, the crowd lurched, the air conditioners

rocked, almost fell but didn’t. Men

prized through the packed-tight crowd,

squeezed themselves from one car to the next,

and back again. A man, not a vendor,

jostled through, lugging a clinking

weight of bottled drinks that could’ve smashed

the upturned faces of the short people. Bags

smelled of cooked meat. I have food,

I can do anything. I know I can.

I know I can. Hard-seat travel.

Suffer more, worth more. The destination

more worth it. The Chinese have not

invented comfort. People fell asleep

on their feet. They work hard, they’re tired,

grateful for a spot of room to rest. Rest.

Rest. A boy slept astraddle his father,

father asleep too, 2 sleeping

heads, head at peace against head.

Had Wittman and his son ever shared one

undistracted moment of being quiet?

Though tall, he could not see above the crowd

and their belongings. What country was rolling past

unappreciated? The train—a local—made stops.

More people squeezed aboard. On and on

and on, yet on the border of immense China.

You’ve heard, always heard: China’s

changing. China’s changed. China gone.

Old China nevermore. Too late.

Too late. Too late. Too late.

Voyage far, and end up at another

globalized city just like the one you left.

Vow not to stop until you can alight

in green country. Country, please remain.

Villages, remain. Languages, remain.

Civilizations, remain. Each village

a peculiar civilization. The mosh between

cars did empty. You got to sit

in the seat you’d paid for. Hillsides

streaming by on the north; on the south,

a river. Arched doors built into

slopes of hills. Cry “Open sesame!”

and enter the good earth. People walking

the wide, pathless ground, placing on the thresholds

flowers and red paper, wine and food,

incense. Ah, altars, doorsills of graves.

Ah, Ching Ming. All over China,

and places where Chinese are, populations

are on the move, going home. That home

where Mother and Father are buried. Doors

between heaven and earth open wide.

Our dead throng across the bourn,

come back to meet us, eat and drink with us,

receive our gifts, and give us gifts.

Listen for, and hear them; they’re listening for

and hear us. Serve the ancestors come back

to visit. Serve them real goods. If

no real goods, give symbols.

Enjoy, dear guests, enjoy life again.

Read the poems rising in smoke. Rituals

for the dead continue, though Communist Revolution,

Cultural Revolution, though diaspora. These hills

could be the Altamont Pass, and the Coast Range

and Sierras that bound the Central Valley. I

have arrived in China at the right time, to catch

the hills green.

      And where shall
I
be buried?

In the Chinese Cemetery on I-5?

Will they allow my white spouse? We integrate

the cemetery with our dead bodies? It’s been my

embarrassing task to integrate social functions.

Can’t even rest at the end. Can’t

rest alongside my father and mother.

Cremate me then. Burn me to ashes. Dig me into

the peat dirt of the San Joaquin Valley.

Dig some more of me into the ‘aina of Hawai‘i.

Leftovers into the sipapu

navel at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and more

leftovers at the feet of oaks in Oakland

and redwoods in Muir Woods and eucalyptus

in the Berkeley grove, and around Shakespeare’s

plants in Golden Gate Park. All my places.

Yosemite. The Sierras. A few handfuls of me

off the Golden Gate Bridge, which I skated across.

And my last ashes on Angel Island, where

my mother was jailed on her way to my father and America.

Thinking about death and far from home, Wittman,

a skinny old guy with nothing to eat, looked

lonely. Chinese cannot bear

anyone being lonely. Loneliness is torture.

(What’s the word for
lonely
? “Nobody,” they say.

“I have nobody.”) Passengers this side and that side

proffered food. Buns,
bow
. Pickled

vegetables. Candied vegetables. Chicken fingers.

Beef jerky. They said, Eat, la. Eat, la.

Chinese can’t eat unless everybody eats.

“Daw jay,” he said, “Dough zheh. Jeah jeah.

Je je nay. Je je nee.”

Thanking in variations of accents and tones.

An old lady (that is, a person

of his own age), wiped the rim of her vacuum

bottle cup, poured, and with both hands

handed him tea while saying, “Ngum cha.

Ngum, la.” Being given tea,

accepting tea, you drink humbly, but think:

I am being welcomed, honored, adored. Out of all

who exist, we 2 tea drinkers

together. Be ceremonial and mindful, we

are performing Tea, performing the moment of eternity.

The tea woman, in the facing seat, held

a box in her lap. The size of a head.

The Man Who Would Be King’s head.

Pointing with his chin as Chinese do,

Wittman impolitely asked, “What

do you have in there?” Can’t be nice with small

vocabulary. She answered, or he understood

her to answer: “I’m a-train-riding

with my husband, carrying my old man home,

ashes and smashed bones.” “Aiya! How did he die?”

“Martial arts killed him.” Or “Bitter work

killed him.” Kung fu. Kung
fu
.

“Aiya-a-a,” chorused the Big Family.

Everyone listening, the widow told her life.

It went something like this: “Not so

long ago, a
loon
time, an era

of
loon
, this man, this very

man now ashes and bones, swam at night

from China to Hong Kong. A boat family,

who harbored in the Typhoon Shelter, gave

him bed on the water, and shared him 2 meals.

Day, they rowed him to a station for signing up

to live in a safe place / haven / sanctuary /

refugee camp. I.I.” Illegal Immigration.

“Aiya-a-a.” “O, Big Family,

hear me. For
loon
years, he—I too—

I was I.I. too—lived

up on top of the barbwired hill.

We met at the fence at the farthest edge. He

looked off the shores toward his lost country.

I looked off toward
my
lost country.

His was that dark mass that looms right there

forever across the Straits. Han Mountain.

He’d say, ‘They can see us. They can see us better

than we can see them.’ Hong Kongers

are rich, they waste money on electricity,

keep lights open all night long.

I could not see
my
country, Viet Nam.

Too far, and China in the way.

We married. We wrote: ‘We marry.

Free or in prison, forever, we marry.’

If only we could write ‘legal immigrants,’

and be legal immigrants.”

      Why always

Illegal Immigration? Oh, no one

ought be made alien to any country.

No more borders. Nosotros no

cruzamos la frontera; la frontera

nos cruza.

  The Vietnamese Chinese

woman addressed tout le monde, including

her husband, a ghost, who was standing behind

Wittman. He was a ghost in the listening crowd,

and he was the ashes and bones in the box.

“You were a good man, Old Rooster.

You worked hard. A farmer works hard.

He’ll always work hard, his life hard,

though he leaves the farm. Though farm /

ground / earth / floor be taken from him.”

The chorus intoned: “Aiya. Hai, la.”

“Taken by the government.” “Taken by business.”

“Taken by brothers.” “Deem the land.” “One

day mid-harvest, a middling harvest,

you, Old Rooster, gave up the fields,

and went to ‘seek your fortune.’ ” She said

in English, “seek your fortune.” A generation

had learned the language from fairy tales broad-

cast by loudspeakers across the commune

agricultural zone, across orchards,

furrows, paddies, dairies. “Farewell,

dear Father. Farewell, dear Mother.

The open road beckons me.” “Farewell,

my child. Go forth. Win your fortune.

Make money, my son. Find love.

Marry the princess.” The widow spoke addressing

her husband, telling him his own story.

“Following the waterways, you walked and swam,

swam and walked from duck pond and streams

and rivers to the Mouth of the Tiger. You had no

Permit To Settle. All through nights,

lights beckon Hong Kong Hong Kong

red red green green. Liang

liang. Ho liang. You swam

for those lights, and came to the ten thousand

sampans, the floating town gone now.

Free and safe for a night and a morning. Boat

people fed you and let you sleep, gave you

bed on the water, fed you twice, supper

and breakfast. JAWK!” She hit the box, caged

it with fingers and arms. “They CAUGHT him.”

Wittman jumped. She laughed; everybody

laughed. “Don’t be scared, foreign

Chinese person. They did not

torture my husband to death. He got

hit a few times was all. You know

the Chinese, they hit to teach you a lesson.

I saved him out of I.I. I got

out of jail because China and Viet Nam

became normal. Han and Viet same-same.”

“Hai, law. Hai, law.” Her American

listener chimed in: “Hola! Hola!

In California, we, Chinese and

Vietnamese, together celebrate Tet.”

Sing dawn. Tet nguyen dâ
.

“I took you, my Chinese husband, by the hand,

and we left prison. I’m the one,

freed you, you Old Rooster. Woman

is better at living than man is. We

went to live in public housing just

like everybody else, the sampan

people, everybody. I made

money. All I do, each meal,

I cook enough for more than 2—

2 people eat very little.

The extra, I sell on the street. A hungry man

always comes along; he’ll buy

breakfast or lunch or dinner or suey yeah.

Life is easier on a woman. Your abilities,

my good Old Rooster, were to swim and to farm.

In the city, you had to sell your
lick
.

Ladies and gentlemen fellow travelers, he

sold his kung.” His strength, his labor. “You

rode a water-soldier boat out

to one of the warships from all over

the world. I watched you be lifted and lowered

by ropes. You hung from ropes down the side

of the ship’s mountainface. Using rags,

you painted the gray ship gray,

ashes, ashes, gray on top of gray.

Fields of gray above you and behind you, you

and the cadre of painters—many women—women,

who adore flowers—oozed gray everywhere

you touched. Metal doubled the sun’s heat,

and baked you, baked lead paint into

your skin. You could’ve let yourself

fall backward into air and water. But you,

everyday you went to Pun Shan Shek

and toiled for me. For me, you caught yang

fever. You breathed poison. Skin and lungs

breathed poison, sweated poison. We

could not wash the gray paint out of you.

It was painting warships killed you. That work

so dangerous, the foreign nations don’t order

their own water soldiers to do it. Old One,

I thank you for your care of me. You are / were

a good hardworking husband to me.

I’m sorry / I can’t face you, my gray

Old Rooster, we never had a son.

Okay. We’re each other’s child.

I take care of you, and you take care of me.

I bring you home. I’m sorry / I can’t

face you, I have taken too long

to bring you home. Stacks and stacks of caskets

and urns wait to get out of Hong Kong.

I pulled you out of the pile-up. We’re on

our way home. You’re a good man.

You worked hard. Jeah jeah jeah.

Daw jeah. Thanks thanks thanks.

Big thanks.” No verb tenses,

what is still happening? What is over?

Yet refugee camps? Yet piles

of unburied dead? Yet coolies painting

ships with lead? All that’s happened always

happening? “I too am walking mountain,”

said a man dressed Hong Kong styly,

expensive suit, expensive shoes, expensive

luggage. “I’ll sweep the graves, I mean, fix them.

Find my people’s bones, and bury them again.”

(Oh, to say “my people.”) “Cousin

was mad; he dug up Po and Goong.”

Mr. Walking Mountain laughed—heh

heh heh heh. Chinese laugh

when telling awfulness. “Cousin dug and cried,

dug and cried, ‘Out the Olds! Out

the Olds! Out! Out, old family.

Out, old thoughts. Out! Out!’

He dug up our grandparents and scattered

their bones—ha ha ha—because

I was rich in Hong Kong and did not

send money—heh heh heh—

did not feed him, did not make good,

did not make good him.” Chinese

laugh when pained. “I return. I shall

walk mountain, and follow li. I’ll

make good the ancestors.”
Jing ho
.

Make good. Fix
. “Dui dui,”

said the Big Family. “Dui dui dui.”

Oh, to hear dui dui dui

to whatever I have to say.

The listening world gives approval, dui

dui dui dui. The train stops

at stations in built-up places. Where’s

open country? The planted fields, water

and rice, rice and water, are but green

belts around factory-villages. Those are

50-gallon drums of something rusting

into the paddy. That apartment and that

factory
is
a village. Legs of Robotron

stomp through the remains of the old pueblo.

Gray pearlescence—marshes and lakes,

mists and skies mirroring mirroring. Beautiful,

and alive. Or dead with oil slick? Mist

or smoke? Why are Wittman and I

on journey with the dead, and escorts of the dead?

Toward sunset, there swung past

a series of pretty villages, yellow adobe

houses, almost gold in the last light,

almost houseboats, wood railings

on the river for laundry and fishing. Half

the homes hung on either bank. Make

up your mind, Monkey, get off the train,

see the rivertown, enter its symmetry.

Paddle the river straight down the valley;

stream with the sun’s long rays. Walk

the right bank and the left bank. Get

yourself invited into those homes. Sit

on the balcony facing the river and the neighbors

on the other side, everyone’s backs to mountains.

Upon Good Earth, lay the body down,

open the mouth wide, let song rush through.