Gloria Marie Bingesser Beckwith
Graham Nicholson
Charles Muscatine
Janet Adelman
Larry Feinberg
Jadin Wong
Ray Dracker
Jack Larson
Each one who dies, I want to go with you.
I feel your pull into death.
I want to join my dead.
I have broken the news that Fa Mook Lan
killed herself. Everyone who hears denies
that it happened. No. How? Why?
The woman soldier comes home from battle;
her child does not recognize his mother.
He cries at sight of her; he runs away from her.
Why not give up on life?
I found evidence, as scholars know evidence,
of how Fa Mook Lan died.
I was at a conference welcoming to Notre Dame
Bei Dao, the poet who wrote
a ritual for ending a thousand-year war.
The people kneel at an abandoned stone quarry,
and fly 50 paper hawks. In a footnote
of a paper entitled “A Poetic Lesson,”
I read that Fa Mook Lan killed
herself by hanging; she refused the emperor’s
order that she become one of his wives.
The source cited was the P.R.C.’s
National Tourism Administration.
1998. Her hanging
may be revisionist history;
governments have trouble acknowledging P.T.S.D.
Why not give up on life?
Why continue to live?
I make up reasons why live on:
1. Kill myself, and I set a bad example
to children and everyone who knows me.
2. I will die deliberately, as Thoreau lived
deliberately. I live nonviolently. So I shall not
kill myself by hanging or sword. If up
to me, I’ll die by helium, and be awake during
the transition, like a Tibetan, who dies with eyes open.
3. I have one more task to do—
translate and publish Father’s poems.
In the tradition of poet answering poet,
BaBa wrote in the margins of my books.
With help from a scholar and the dictionary,
I’m able to read and hereby translate
his 19th song for barbarian reed pipe:
I can hear Mong Guo playing their music.
My horse sings a sad song in concert.
Some of those strange people are singing words;
some are playing instruments that double as
weapons, flutes to arrows, lyres to crossbows.
I can hear their voices outside
great walls. They are aliens to me,
though I am among / one of them. Alone.
But BaBa did not write “I.”
The old poets did not write “I.”
Hear Mong Guo playing their music.
Horse sings a sad song …
Hear their voices outside great walls …
They are aliens …
Among them, one alone.
But how be alone unless “I”? How
be lonely with you-understood alongside?
How be American unless “I”? Crossing
languages, crossing the sky of life and death,
Daughter will help Father. I am barbarian
who sings strange words. BaBa,
we’ll show them, the academics who
can find no literature of South China.
We’ll write dialect older and more tones
than Mandarin and Beijing. BaBa’s
name-in-poetry is Lazy Old Man.
He was lucky, he got old.
He was wealthy with time,
to do nothing, to be poet.
4. Toward the end of her life, living alone,
MaMa accidently locked
herself out of the house, and spent the winter
night outside. She wrapped the old
dog blanket around herself, but could not
sleep. She walked around and around the house;
she tried lying down in various places
on the ground. She got up, and walked to the front
yard—and saw Kuan Yin on the porch.
The house looked like a resplendent altar; the porch
railings were altar rails. Kuan Yin was
watering the flowers and plants that adorned like spring,
red red green green. She stood
at the top of the stairs, and saw my mother. MaMa
knelt on the cement, and was warm with joy and beauty
and delight. Many many children came.
Kuan Yin and MaMa walked
among them, touching them on their bald heads.
When we found her, she was asleep
on the porch in a spot of morning sun.
5. I have the ability to sense love—it comes
from ancestors and family and sanghas of friends.
I am able to feel love from afar and ages ago.
6. Learn the patience to listen to music. Music
arranges time. Can’t hurry listening.
I resolve to dance the Memorial Day
Carnaval in the Mission when I am 70.
7. I will have free time. I have never
had free time. I will have time to give away.
I regret always writing, writing. I gave
my kid the whole plastic bag of marshmallows,
so I could have 20 minutes to write.
I sat at my mother’s deathbed, writing.
I did swab her mouth with water, and feel
her pliant tongue enjoy water, then harden
and die. Before I had language,
before I had stories, I wanted to write.
That desire is going away.
I’ve said what I have to say.
I’ll stop, and look at things I called
distractions. Become reader of the world,
no more writer of it. Surely, world
lives without me having to mind it.
A surprise world! When I complete
this sentence, I shall begin taking
my sweet time to love the moment-to-moment
beauty of everything. Every one. Enow.
Glossary
ah—an honorific or vocative syllable, used in front of names, like “san” following names in Japanese
ahn—peace
‘aina—land, earth
aiya—an interjection vocalized to express amazement, pain, sorrow—any emotion, large or small
aloha kākou—“May there be love including all of us.”
‘ama‘ama—mullet fish
aswang—an evil vampirelike creature living in the Philippines
‘aumākua—totem animal; a familiar; an ancestor deified in the form of an animal
auwe—an interjection vocalized to express amazement, pain, sorrow—any emotion, large or small
aw—a sound made at the end of a sentence indicating a question
Ba T’ien Ma Day—“Father Sky Mother Earth”; Ba Tiān Ma Di in Mandarin
big family—everybody, tout le monde
bow—bun, sweet or savory
casita—little house
daw jeah; daw jay; dough zheh—“many thanks,” in various dialects
deem—to judge, to ransom (in English); to mark, to consider (in Chinese)
dui—agree, match, aligned, paired
enow—enough
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread,—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
—OMAR KHAYYAM
enso—circle, symbolizing the moment, the all, enlightenment, emptiness
este grupo, ese grupo—this group, that group
fawn—play
fawn (different ideogram from ab
ove)—cooked rice
feng shui—wind water
fu—human, bitter, tiger, pants, wolf’s bane, or father, depending on tone
fu ngoy—fermented tofu
gaw—elder brother
goak goong—bow, obeisance (literally: nourish, cherish grandfather)
goong—grandfather
hai—yes
haole—white person; formerly, any foreigner
hapa—person of mixed blood; fraction
ho—good, very; hao in Mandarin
ho chau—very mean, most unkind
ho chun—very related
ho kin—good seeing you; well met
hola; ho, la—hello; good
ho’ohaole—to act like a white person
ho sun—good morning, good body, strongly believe, or good letter, depending on tones and context
huang dai—king (literally: yellow emperor)
hui—club, organization, association, society, band, team, troupe, league, firm, union, company, alliance
hun—regret, yearn, longing, hungry for
inmigrante—immigrant
jawk—capture
jeah jeah; je je; jeh jeh—“thanks thanks,” in various dialects
je je nay; je je nee—“thank you,” in various dialects
jing ho—to make good, to fix
joong—tamale, but wrapped with ti or banana or bamboo leaves rather than corn husks
joy kin; joy keen—au revoir, auf Wiedersehen; “zaijian,” in village dialects
kuleana—responsibility, right, business, property, province, privilege, authority
kuleana hana—responsibilities on the job
kung—work, achievement; the time it takes in doing a piece of work
la; lah; law—a pleasant sound made at the end of a sentence
La Dona Guerrera—the Woman Warrior
la inmigración—immigration
lai—come
lan—orchid
las madres y las comadres—the mothers and godmothers
lei see—red packet of money (literally: come be), traditionally spelled lai see
lei see dai gut—gift of big luck, traditionally spelled lai see dai gut
li—tradition, rites, good manners:
Li is the acting out of veneration and love, not only for parents, for one’s sovereign, for one’s people, but also for “Heaven-and-earth.” … One learns by Li to take one’s place gratefully in the cosmos and in history.
—THOMAS MERTON
liang—pretty
lick—strength
loon—chaos
lu—road
mai—rice that is growing (rice that is cooked is “fawn”)
mai’a mālei—fish guardian from Makapu’u to Hanauma on O’ahu; “malei” for short
mele—song, anthem, chant, poem, poetry
mew; mow—“cat,” in various dialects
mew (different ideogram from above)—temple
mien—face
minamina—regret a loss
ming—bright
mm—no, not
mo—a sound at the end of a sentence signifying a question
moy—younger sister, plum
ngum cha—drink tea
Nosotros no cruzamos la frontera; la frontera nos cruza.—“We do not cross the border; the border crosses us.” (A slogan of the immigrants’ rights movement)
paniolo—cowboy (after España, Spain)
Pásame la botella.—“Pass me the bottle.”
pila ho’okani—instrumental music
po—grandmother
sammosa—forgetfulness; loss of awareness
sangha—the sacred community that lives in peace and harmony
Say Yup—language spoken in Four Districts, Guangzhou
seh doc—to bear; to afford; to be able to withstand
sing dawn fai lock—“Happy New Year” in Chinese (literally: holy birthday happiness joy)
sipapu—a small hole in the floor of the kiva symbolizing the portal through which the ancestors came
su doc—think virtue
suey yeah—midnight snack
sun—morning, body, believe, letter
tet nguyen dâ—“Happy New Year” in Vietnamese (literally: feast of the first morning)
thala—ultimate star
ting—pavilion, sacred vessel, stop, listen
walk mountain—pay respects to the dead
waw; wei—interjections like “wow”
wu wei—non-doing
Contentment and well-being at once become possible the moment you cease to act with them in view, and if you practice non-doing (wu wei), you will have both happiness and well-being.
—THOMAS MERTON
Xizang—Tibet
zaijian—au revoir, auf Wiedersehen
Notes
Many thanks to the authors of the following sources, which are excerpted or referred to in the text:
Irving Berlin, “Sittin’ in the Sun (Countin’ My Money).”
Dalai Lama, How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships, translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, Atria Books, 2006.
Gilgamesh, translated by David Ferry, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992.
Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1858.
Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, New Directions, 1965.
John Mulligan, Shopping Cart Soldiers, Curbstone Press, 1997.
Rumi, “Songs of the Reed,” The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, Castle Books, 1997.
Maghiel van Crevel, Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem, and Money, Brill Academic Publishers, 2008.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Sherman and Co., Philadelphia, 1900.
Yang Lian, “Poets and Poems in Exile: On Yang Lian, Wang Jiaxin, and Bei Dao,” translated by Maghiel van Crevel.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maxine Hong Kingston, the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, The Fifth Book of Peace, and other works, has earned numerous awards, among them the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. For many years a Senior Lecturer for Creative Writing at U.C. Berkeley, she lives in California.
ALSO BY MAXINE HONG KINGSTON
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
China Men
Hawai‘i One Summer
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book
To Be the Poet
The Fifth Book of Peace
As Editor:
The Literature of California: Native American Beginnings to 1945
Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace