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the island of grass, the room behind a curtain

of weeping willow. Free to make whatever

expressions you like. Dance like nobody else.

I join this group and that one, get easily

into step, not worried, in sync,

out of sync, nobody’s looking at me.

I’m part of the Chinese crowd. I stand

in first-position chi kung, and watch

the teacher direct her advanced students, who

have their backs to her. She waves her hands,

and they in unison leap into the air.

Waw! Wei! She’s lifting, orchestrating

their jumps with chi. Her chi is mighty;

she is 90 years old. Teacher

walks up to me; she studies me.

I feel warmth from her eyes on my skin.

She adjusts my hands to make paws like

an upright-standing squirrel or bear.

She runs her hand straight down the center

of my chest. I feel power shoot

into me, heating my core, glowing. She’d

given me some of her chi, charged me with chi.

Chi is real; I am strengthened to this day.

“You stand for one hour,” she says.

I stand for one hour. Marveling, there is such

a thing as chi. Yin wind, yang

wind, real. Life, love, soul,

good. And there are people who can

control it and transmit it, and teach you how

to acquire chi, and how to use it. At the end

of my hour, Teacher comes to check on me.

Her eyes scan me, land on my hair.

“Keep working on your chi kung;

your hair will turn black.” Her hair

is jet-black. She doesn’t like

white hair. I won’t work chi kung

to change my hair; I want to change the world.

My body and mind taking on forms that

Chinese have been configuring for 4,000

years, my 12 meridians linking up

with the globe’s 360, energy will round

the globe, and heal the bombed-up world.

I’m not alone; people here and people who’ve

migrated everywhere are doing this work of

influencing wind and water (feng shui).

We continue the life of the world. Live,

live, live, live.

In Xi’an,

there’s a museum like the museum I made

as a kid for my collections, strange things

I picked up along the railroad tracks,

and in the slough, and in the cash register.

Deer hoof, a baby bat, counterfeit

money, fool’s gold. Behind dusty

glass, there lay the arrow with nock-whistle

that I’d invented for the barbarians who

played the reed pipe. The poet’s imagination

flies true. It works, it hit on the actual.

It can make up a thing that will

materialize, in China, in Time, the past, the future.

So, at the walled city of West Peace,

I come to the start of the Silk Road, which forks.

Southwest, the way Tripitaka Tang

and Monkey Sun Wu Kong went questing,

betakes you to India. Northwest, you’d end

up in Afghanistan, then Iran, then Uruk,

home of Gilgamesh—Iraq. Peace groups

invite me to these places, but I turn them down.

I don’t want my heart to break.

Fa Mook Lan would go. She’d join

the army of whichever side held her family

hostage. She’d win battles, and receive

honorable discharge home, though the 1,000

years war is not done. Now

I know: She killed herself.

She had P.T.S.D.; her soldier’s heart broke,

and she fell upon her sword. This month,

May 2009, more American soldiers died by

their own hand than killed by Iraqis and Al Qaeda.

So far this year, 62 suicides,

more than half of them National Guard;

138 in 2008. I have no words of consolation.

Wittman, son, brother, imaginary friend,

I need you. Help me again. Go

up Sky Mountain. Here, I’ll

unwind for you a ribbon of rainbow silk

scrolling into golden desert. Walk

upon it with men in burnooses and women in burkas,

colors blowing and flapping, and camels swaying

and swinging bells, heading toward cities

and mirages of cities. The oasis that gives you

haven is Basra, the air station and naval

base. Basra, home of Sinbad the Sailor,

and before that, the Garden of Eden.

Please stand on a roadside, and hold

the Bell of Peace, a golden bowl, on

your proffering hand, and think this thought:

“Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness,

I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.

May all the hearers awaken from forgetfulness,

and transcend the