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RICE VILLAGE

At the next station, Wittman, nobody else,

got off. The moment his feet touched ground,

the Chinese earth drew him down

to her, made him fall to his knees, kowtow

and kiss her. Gravity is love force. It bends

light and time and us. Mother pulls us to

her by heart roots. I have felt Great Spirit

before: Touching the green wood door

of Canterbury Cathedral. Hearing the air

of Hawai‘i singing ‘Aina. Standing in the fire

zone, where my house and neighborhood were burning.

Lofting great balls of pink mana

at the White House and Bush, and Iraq.

The interested traveller walked along the railroad

tracks, then up on path atop bunds.

In the San Joaquin Delta, we walk and run

and bicycle upon dikes too, call them levees.

Many kinds of plants. Crop diversity.

Rice in all stages of growing and going

to seed. All seasons happening at once.

Plains and terraces, levels and hills, greens

dark and light, blues, and straw, are dotted

with moving red—the farmers are working dressed

in red. They can see where one another are.

They are seen; they are lucky. It’s beautiful

and lucky to dot red on anything—cookies,

buns, baby carriers, envelopes, white

chicken meat, white dogs. On one’s self,

who blesses the earth good and red.

Wittman got to their village before they did,

nightfall ere home from work. The yellow

adobe pueblo was one conjoined structure.

Neighbor and neighbor lived with common walls

this side and that side. Each life impacts

every life. You’d have to live carefully.

You’d watch your moods. And your actions.

Curious Monkey entered through an opening

in a wall and faced another wall,

decided to go right, right being

the right way, usually. The next doorway

took him to an alley; he could look-see

into courtyards, like outdoor kitchens

and laundries and pantries and even bedrooms.

An old squatting grandma was stirring a wok.

Another was washing vegetables. They paid no

mind to the stranger shadowing by. Kitty

cats and a big pig and chickens—swine flu,

bird flu—slinked, lumbered, scratched,

came and went into and out of houses.

That alley jigjagged into another

alley that opened on to the public square.

La plaza at the center of the pueblo. And at the center

of the plaza was the waterworks, not a fountain

but two porcelain troughs with PVC

pipes above and below, and faucets in rows.

Cupping water in worship-like hands

(turn off tap with elbow), quaff

as if welcoming myself with ceremony,

joining myself to this place. Drinking,

aware that I, a citizen from the wealthiest,

squanderingest country, am taking precious water.

Unpurified tap water. Aware that I

risk my life, I throw in my lot

with the health of this common village. Sit

right down on the curbstone on the east

side of the square. Face the last of the sun.

Unpack notebook and pen. Write:

arrive

adobe

China

home

At home in a civilization kind with plazas,

containing me and the sky and a square of earth.

Father Sky

Mother Earth

It’s not only Native Americans who pray

Father Sky Mother Earth. Chinese

say Father Sky Mother Earth too.

In the almanac of stars, moons, luck, and farming:

Ba

T’ien

Ma

Day

Doff sneakers, doff socks, feel

the ground with naked soles. The floor of the plaza

is warm and smooth; skin meets skin.

Chinese generations walked

barefoot here, sweated, oiled,

spat upon, tamped the black soil,

which they could’ve planted, so rich. Now,

the farmers, men and women, homeward plod.

A goatherd following his goats and sheep,

a duckherd his ducks, light and long shadows

of many legs oscillating. They came upon

the writing man—poet!? retired philosopher!?—

in the act of public writing. Quietly,

they peered over his shoulders, peered over

his right (writing) hand, peered over

his other hand. By calligraphy, they can tell

character and fate. Readers jostled

one another for the spot directly in front,

looked at his writing upside down,

craned their necks to see it from his point

of view. English! The Brave Language. But

his Chinese! A boy