I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [6]
trees, dogwood, the elm, locust, catalpa,
3 redwoods from seed, 4 pepper
willows, and 7 kinds of fruit trees.
The katsura and the yucca are volunteers.
That Texas privet and the bamboo, survivors. Here,
I feel as I felt in Hawai‘i, as I felt in Eden.
A joy in place. Adam and Eve were never
thrown out; they grew old in the garden.
They returned after travels. So, I,
like the 14th Dalai Lama, have arrived
at my last incarnation? I don’t feel a good
enough person to be allowed off the wheel.
I am guilty for leaving my mother. For leaving
many mothers—nations, my race, the ghetto.
For enjoying unconsciousness and dreams, wanting
sleep like thirst for water. I left MaMa
for Berkeley, then 17 years in Hawai‘i.
Couldn’t come home winter and spring breaks,
nor summers. She asked, “How can I bear
your leaving?” No, I’m not translating right.
“Can I seh doc your leaving?” Seh doc
tells the pain of losing something valuable.
How can she afford my leaving?
Seh doc sounds like can write.
Sounds almost like my father’s name.
Father who left her behind in China for 15
years. I too left her.
“Lucky,” she bade and blessed, in English. “Lucky.”
She and Father stood at the gate, looking
after me. Looking after each child as
we left for college, left for Viet Nam.
Her eyes were large and all-holding.
No tears. She only cried when laughing.
Me too. I’m in tears laughing.
From the demimonde, Colette wrote, lying
to her mother, All’s well, I’m happy.
Our only son did not leave us;
we left him in Hawai‘i.
Generations. Karma. Ah Goong
walked my mother to the end of Tail End
Village. Whenever she looked back, he was still
standing there weeping and looking after her.
LEAVING HOME
I’ll watch over Wittman Ah Sing
go through the leaving of his wife. A practicing artist
herself, Taña understands the wanter
of freedom. Let him go. If they stay put,
husband and wife lose each other anyway,
artist and artist dreaming up separate
existences. Go on roads through country you define
as you go. Wend through taboo mazes.
“But, Wittman,” says Taña, “ ’til death us do part.”
(Say those words, and you vow once again.)
“No, Taña, not death, only away awhile.”
Married so long, every word and moment is
thick with strata and fathoms and echoes.
35 years ago, they climbed
the Filbert Steps, walked in and out
of garden gates, pretended this house
and that house were home. They’d wed atop
Coit Tower. Look! Where it comes again.
Our wedding tower lifts out of the fog
and the forest edge of the City. “I need
to get to China, and I have to go
without helpmeet. I’ve been married to you
so long, my world is you. You
see a thing, I see it. The friends you
like, I like. The friends you can’t
stand, I can’t stand. My
perception is wedded to your perception.
You have artist’s eyes. I’d wind up
seeing the China you see. I want
to see for myself my own true China.”
Taña says, “So, you don’t want to be
with me, and we become old, old
lovers and old artists together. You,
my old lover. I love you, old lover.”
Wittman feels a rush that is Taña’s benevolence
for him suffuse him. He has to try harder
to leave her. “I love you, Taña. Thank you,
my wife, for our lifetime,
and our past lifetimes. We don’t
have to get divorce papers. We quit
being householders is all. The chi
connecting us will stretch infinitely.”
On such agreement, the long-married can part.
His birthday morning continues fair. The Bay
is busy with sailboats, and the ocean outside
the Golden Gate calmly opens forever.
All seems well, as though Water Margin
protected us. I have a soul, and it expands large
as I look out at the Pacific; I do
remember to look every single day.
Suddenly, I get scared. Some
fanatic is delivering by freighter or yacht or barge
or cruiser a nuke. BANG! The end.
The separating couple drive to Reno—not
for divorce but to give their son, Mario, a chance
to say Happy Birthday, Dad, and Goodbye.
Spelling each other at the wheel, they cross
stateline at South Shore Lake Tahoe,
travel Highway