I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

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I Love a Broad Margin to My Life Page 15

by Maxine Hong Kingston

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

  los derechos de criadas—the rights of maids

  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

 

 

 


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