I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [14]
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