I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (9 page)

mirror, and looks at their images in reverse,

turns around quick—catches something—

paints it down. As if I am

hard to see. The artist is doing mighty

feats of concentration to hold me real.

Across the courtyard is a south-facing

window, dark inside, nobody lives there.

One day, the window is utterly gone.

Nary a jamb or corner or glint remains.

The explanation has got to be that tree;

it leafed out, and put the window out

of sight. Must’ve mislooked, imagined

a window through the wavering spaces between

glittery leaves. Then, another day,

the leaves disappear, the tree disappears.

A green tree? A red tree? Gone.

And there’s the window again. Next to the window

is a gray wall. There are no shadows

on it because no tree, no branches.

Only light, light that changes, changes

with the moving day. So beautiful, the non-

repeating universe, I could watch it forever.

So beautiful, the nothingness of the ground.

Suddenly, the artist picks up the painting,

turns it around, thrusts it toward its subject—

“Finis!”—and has him see his portrayal. Omigod!

So much strain. So many wrinkles.

Read the wrinkles. I’m straining might and main

to carry out ideals. I have ideals.

I didn’t lose them along with my young self.

But I try too hard, the strain shows.

Not graceful under fire. I ended

the war in Viet Nam. I am determined,

we shall stop warring in Iraq,

and Afghanistan. Well, not

the fun-loving monkey but the world-carrying

citizen, okay. Wittman leaves

the art village, leaves the picture for history.

He betakes himself to yet one more village.

I need him to go to an all-male place,

a monastery, to make sure that Shao Lin

or Han Shan or Water Margin sanctuary

exists. That the Chinese religion lives.

He locates and climbs Su Doc Mountain.

(Su Doc, Think Virtue, Hong

Ting Ting’s father’s name.) Through

the fog and mist of dragons breathing, following

a trail, possibly made by deer, he comes

to a ramshackle
mew
, a temple. No one

answers his knock. He opens the door, and enters

a dark room. Silent men and a few

little boys are eating supper. Someone

hands over a rice bowl and chopsticks,

and gestures eat eat. The food

is leftovers of leftovers. Even

the child monks practice eating meditation,

mindfully selecting some unrecognizable

brown vegetable, chewing it many times,

tasting it, identifying it, thinking about

and appreciating who grew it and cooked it, grateful

to them, and to the sun and the rain and the soil,

and all that generates and continues all.

After eating (food still left over),

the monks sit enjoying stomachs full,

holding the segue from this present moment

to this present moment. The kid monks

play kung fu boxing, push and

chase one another unreprimanded

around the table. The floor-sitting adults

get up. With sand and a small pail

of precious water, each cleans his bowl.

No leader tells the newcomer

what to do; no explainer gives

instructions. Under the vow of silence, we

can know we are all equally human.

Can’t tell who’s smarter than who,

whose job is better, who has more

money, more class. Silence, democracy.

Enemies can’t argue; thoughts and feelings

deepen, alter, fade, merge. The monks go

outdoors and meander in the dusk

that shadows into dark night. You

can see the Milky Way, the River of Heaven,

bridge, trail of corn, diadem

made up of individual stars.

It’s not a long wispy cloud as in light-

polluted America.
Dok dok dok
.

Dok dok dok dok dok
.

The sound of wood clapping on wood calls

the community back inside. This monastery

is so poor, it doesn’t own a bell.

They’ve transformed the room where they’d eaten

into a meditation hall. Candlelight

and incense and
dok-dok-dok
summon

deities. They arrive upon the altar.

There’s Kwan Yin the merciful. And Kwan Yin

the wrathful. She who imprisoned Monkey, and freed

him. And red Gwan Goong on his red horse;

that book he’s reading is
The Art of War
. The 8

Immortals are here too, and lohans and arhats

and Buddhas and monkeys. We offer this incense

to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout

space and time. The cushion in the middle place

among the monks is empty, for the new brother.

The community is aware of his presence; they look

after him. I will stay and sit until—

satori! Where else but in China?

Breathe in … breathe out … breathe

in … breathe out … breath incoming …

breath outgoing … breath incoming …

These monks don’t have a chanter guiding

their meditation. Peeking at them, you can’t tell

who’s meditating, who’s acting.

Surely, nobody here’s an actor, a spy

in government pay. Why would Commies bother

with a temple in the middle of nowhere?

No one hits Monkey upside the head

for mind-wandering. He tries signaling a need

for a whack, taps himself on a shoulder blade,

taps himself on the head. No minder monk

whacks him with a Zen stick. But
Zen
is Jap-

anese, and
satori
is Japanese. The monks

sit on, the kid monks gone,

to play, to do schoolwork, to sleep.

Monkey would leave too but for his sense

of competition and peer pressure.

The usual workings of his mind take him over;

he plays the time game: 29 …

30 … 40 minutes … 1 hour …

2 hours … 3 … real time?

Seeming time? It feels 9 o’clock,

then at length, or shortly, 11 o’clock.

How to be in sync? Whyfor in sync?

Because joy and life exist nowhere but the present.

Dok dok dok dok dok
.

At last, the monks stir, wake up,

massage their feet, pound their own shoulders,

walk about, go out, come

back, unroll the cushions, which become beds,

blanket, and pillow. Meditation hall

becomes dorm. Wittman does get tap-

tapped, on the feet. A monk about to bed

down beside him tap-taps him, and makes

a circle motion with his hand: Turn around.

You dis the gods, giving them the underside

of your feet. And your head will benefit

exchanging vibes, chi, dreams with the altar.

Candles burn down. Shadows on the ceiling

fly into night. Snoring, snuffling,

vocalizing—
aaahh, oooo, rrrrr
—the community

sleeps together. Breath breathing breath.

Dok dok dok
. Wake up.

4 a.m. Time to meditate again.

Everybody gets back up to sitting

position, and breathes out, breathes in,

aware of breathing out, aware of breathing in.

When I, Maxine, am worried and can’t sleep,

I remember to remember: at 4 a.m.

the Dalai Lama and William Stafford are awake

with me, and meditating and making up

a poem, and making up the world, preparing

the morning that we can

live as peaceful gentle,

kind human beings. We build the Kaya,

the Body, and the Dharmakaya,

the Buddha-body. Hold our bluegreen

world joyous and vibrant.
Mm nn

nn nn nnn mm mmm

I am hearing Heart Sutra in Chinese.

Heart Sutra that won the war for the Vietnamese.

People awake around the globe turning and

lifting day into being chanting

Heart Sutra. No eye, no

ear, no nose, no tongue,

no body or mind, no form,

no sound, no smell, no taste,

no touch, no object of mind,

nor feelings, nor perceptions, nor

mental formations, nor consciousness.

All things are empty. Nothing

is born, nothing dies. No ill-

being, no cause of ill-being,

no end of ill-being. No

old age and death, no end

to old age and death. Wu wei.

Wu wei. Wu wei. No,

not heart Sutra. Older than Heart.

Tao. Wu wei. Wu wei.

No way. No thought. No

doing. No willing. Dwell no-

where. Rest in nothing. How did no

bang the universe to life? No answer.

Dok dok. Dok dok dok
.

Next, go outdoors to play / work /

fight / dance / move chi kung fu.

Begin, stand, root into earth,

root like tree. Knees bent, seat

heavy, feel chi, imagine chi

rise up through the soles of your feet.

Lift arms, pull the chi from the earth

up to the sky. Circle the Sky. Stir

the Universe. The police in Tiananmen Square

watch for lift-arms—first move

of Falun Gong. They’re Falun Gong. Arrest them.

Commies haven’t lost belief in the old ways,

that chi kung can turn heaven and earth.

Revolution. Forest moves, leaves and insects,

weather, dirt, and water blow and flow.

The kung fu movers enter and emerge

in and out of the camouflage of trees.

A person stands out, tall against

the sky, like a shining angel, then shrinks

into a human bug flickering in the landscape.

The martial artists make animal moves, get

animal powers. Cup hands downward,

like paws, up on hind legs—rabbit,

bear, monkey. Arms and legs fly—

white crane, invented by woman.

Make 108 moves

108 times, keep

existence going, cause life and the good

to come into being. The 360

meridians of the world stream with the 12

meridians of my body. I swirl,

galaxies swirl. Rocks alive, mountains

alive. Soul through and through rocks,

mountains, ranges and ranges of mountains.

Bright Smile of Spontaneous Joy. Lift

the sides of your obstinate mouth, and start joy.

Joy courses through the body, all

the happy bodies. “Come come come,”

beckons a monk. “Lai, la. Lai, la.

Come see a monk in ecstasy.

We have a monk in ecstasy.”

The cell has no windows and no lights

but you can still see. A tall man

is standing tilted, curving to one side.

Round. His body seems to make a round.

Head back and uplifted. You can’t

see if his eyes are open or shut. So,

this is the way it looks from the outside.

A perfection. The witnesses make silent applause,

alleluia hands, jubilation hands.

“Lai, la. Lai, la.”

Now to the hillside with a willow stream

that’s a graveyard. This stone like a door

marks the grave of Fa Mook Lan,

Woman Warrior. Over Wittman’s shoulder,

I can read each word of her name.

“She killed herself,” says the monk.

“She hung herself.” No. No.

Why? I can’t believe it. Why?

“The emperor heard: The mighty general was a woman

in disguise, a brave and beautiful woman who’d gone

to war as a man. He sent for her to be a wife.

She refused, and he placed her under house arrest.

She killed herself at home.” No. No.

She can’t be the Fa Mook Lan who’s

the woman warrior I told about, we all

tell about. Many women named for her.

And the monk’s speech, a rare dialect issuing

from the habit of silence, hard to understand.

She couldn’t have killed herself. She couldn’t

have found life after war, life

as a woman, useless to live. How to go on

without her? Wittman has to find a way.

And I have to find my own way.

Go on, alone. I have no

sense of direction. Left, right, east,

west arbitrary to my instincts. Mother

taught me, Memorize: Face the black rocking

chair, place your arms on its arms;

the scissors, the pencil you hold in
this
hand

this
side of the rocking chair. I’ve been

lost, taking a walk with our toddling son

into nature. Sun upon and between the shaking

leaves forms images of rivers and houses and people

coming to the rescue. I shouted and screamed for rescue.

Our boy said, “We can eat the flies.”

I’ve been lost, taking a solitary walk

in my own neighborhood, where the streets curve

around, and I circle and circle. Earll drove

around until he found me. I walked very,

very mindfully into the Grand Canyon,

down the Great Unknown, lost sight

of any person, and did not get lost,

and walked back up to the top. I followed

a deer, who did not run away from me,

and I did not get lost. Maps of China

were made for me by Columbus and Kafka.

The most beautiful thing that Columbus had ever seen

was the land, “gardens,” wholly bright green.

He walked among the trees, which grew 5 kinds

of leaves and fruit branching from one trunk.

The greatest wonder in the new world, he said, was

“diversity.” A man alone in a canoe rowed by;

he was bringing bread from island to island.

Kafka heard from an unknown boatman

that a great wall will be built to box in

the Center, which is itself a series of box mazes,

all contained within the endless outside

wall. Villages, cities, each further maze.

The ruler of the Center has a message for us;

he whispers it into the messenger’s ear, has it

whispered back, nods, then dies.

To get to us, the way goes from innermost

courts, up mountains of staircases

and stiles over walls, down stairs

and more stairs to an outer palace, onward

to the next outer palace, the next, more

courts, more stairs, more mazy

palaces. Years and years go by.

And I am traveling the other way, inward

to the Center. Must not tire, must

not grow old and want to die.

After years and miles of travel and worry,

keeping west, keeping south, I come

to a home-like village in Viet Nam.

All the land from the Yangtze River

to Quang Tri had been Nam Viet / Nan Yue.

The Hung / Hong Bang kings ruled

for 2,621 years.

I was on a boat in the Pearl River delta

(my mother in a boat going the other way,

hiding under a pile of oranges, escaping

from the Japanese, catching the big ship

to meet my father in America), and next

thing I knew, I was in the Red River delta.

The same pearlescent water, changing colors

with the tropical sun, the same red dirt,

and gray dirt and black dirt. Same

as the San Joaquin delta, back home. The farmers

grow rice; they treasure the water

buffalos, name them names like Great Joy.

The people look same-same Chinese.

“The like of the same I feel,

the like of the same in others.…”

But an utterly foreign language chimes out

of their mouths. (Flashback to the first day of

American school: Other children! But

I can’t speak with them. I wanted to say,

“You smell like milk. Your skin

looks like chocolate ice cream. And yours

like strawberry-and-vanilla ice cream.”

And I wanted to ask, “How do you

feel being you?”) I arrived

at the hamlet on a holiday. The hot

breeze, hot even beside the hurrying

river, blew and flew flags, long

banners, tassels, long ribbons. Lots

of red. Not just political red. Red

for health, for beauty, for good luck.
Clang

clang clang clang! Bang! Bang!

Ho-o-nk! Qwoooo! Bum! Bum!
The musicians

played freestyle no-pattern

free-for-all any old way. Broke

patterns. Broke time. And firecrackers

went off every which way.

Firecrackers like bombs and artillery fire,

and rocket fire. They aren’t afraid,

the bangs setting off P.T.S.D.

No more P.T.S.D. P.T.S.D. over.

War over. War won. They won every war.

The American War, and before that, war

with the French, and before that, the Japanese,

and before that, the Chinese. They

invited me into a tent open

on one side, sat me at the picnic

table, and served me joong. Just like

back home. Untie the string—what

message are these lines and knots telling me

if I could but read? Unwrap the ti

leaves—ti sacred in every country

where it grows. Eat the rice and mung beans,

the pork, and the whole sun of egg yolk.

I partake of joong with the once-enemy.

Does joong mean to them what it means to me?

They are eating peace food with their

twice-enemy, an American, a Chinese.

Chinese invented joong to feed

the dragons in the river where Chu Ping, the peace

martyr, drowned himself.
Clang clang!

Kang! Boom boom boom! Kang!

Bum bum! Kang kang! Qwoooo!

C’mon c’mon c’mon! I was rushed

out of the tent into a rushing crowd.

Everyone—all of the hamlet, and other hamlets—

out of the rolling ocean the crowd—around

corners and bends stream more crowd—

hurrying, hurrying somewhere wonderful. Above

heads, lifted and carried on chairs,

thrones, moved a parade of idols. Who

were they? Gods? Heroes? Ancestors?

They had big wide-open eyes, as if

they could see all things and all

people, see far to where we’re going.

I could not recognize the figures by a sign,

no antler bumps on head, no

red face, no blue face,

no long ears, no mudra

of hands, no multiple hands, no

multiple heads. They looked like regular

people dressed up in silk and gold

raiment, and crowns. The crowd slowed, so

tight were we. We fitted ourselves breast to

back, sides to sides, no elbow poking, no

stepping on toes or heels. Over our heads,

the roomy sky was benign blue; the clouds

were long and wispy. The crowd up ahead

moved faster, drawing, pulling my part

of crowd after them, faster, faster. I’m

a short person. All I can see are backs.

Where are the friends I had joong with? I can’t see

the idols anymore either. I look

at the sky trying but unable to project my point

of view to see the whole crowd, and the country it’s

moving through, whether there’s a destination,

and to find the people I know. I could lift

my feet, leave the ground, and the close-fitting

crowd would carry me. I don’t have to watch

or decide where I’m going. I stayed in step,

running on tiptoes. The ground was dirt

and trodden grass. The dirt was damp, damper,

wet. We were beside the river. We were

following the snaking path of the long river.

Song Hong, River Red, the Red River,

which goes from the Yunan River in China

to the Gulf of Tonkin. The river is full

of dragons, the river
is
a dragon.

Viet Nam is a dragon rampant;

she has a large head, many mouths,

and a long spine that flares into fantails.

And
I’m
a dragon, and my mother a dragon. I

and all these people are drops of dragon within

the big dragon body. We are blood.

We are performing dragon. Every so often,

Chinese have to mass together,

become a mashing moshing crowd. In

the United States, lonely, you can join the people

in Chinatown shopping for their daily greens,

and get your fix of Chinese crowd.

But those crowds move in both directions,

pass one another coming and going.

This mass I’m embedded in

feels like a Japanese or Korean demo,

like an advancing army. Breaching worry (worry is

the default working of my natural mind), I feel:

elation. Crowd joy. Happiness-in-people.

I am reliving peace demonstrations.

In San Francisco, we were a peace dragon

with 100,000 pairs of feet

walking up and down the city hills. From rooftops

and balconies rained rice as at weddings,

and water on the summer’s day, and rose petals,

and red and motley confetti. In Washington, D.C.,

on International Women’s Day, 2003, our peace

dragoness was a mile long, winding our way

to the White House. 1,000,000 people

marched in Rome. And thousands of Shiite

and Sunni Muslims together in Baghdad.

“O Democracy, I will make inseparable

cities with their arms about each other’s necks.”

For the first time in history, the area in front

of the White House fence was banned to demonstrators.

The U.S. Park Police stopped us

at Pennsylvania Avenue. So, we sat in.

We sat ourselves down upon the historic

ground. “Our House, our street.”

The Rangers are friendly and will converse, used

to being helpful to tourists. We have a permit;

didn’t you get a copy? You promised,

we could parade in front of the White House.

“Our House, our street.” The permit’s

for only 25 people. Okay,

so let’s count off 25.

1 2 3 4 5 …

I was ninth, 9 my lucky number.

I said my number and stepped between the Rangers.

Running at us, whooping, cheering came

a pink-clad crowd—the tail of the dragon!

They had gotten through the police line

at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

We rushed to meet them. Hugging, holding

one another, happy, we completed the ring

around our House. “… A troop gathers around me.

Some walk by my side and some behind, and some

embrace my arms or neck … thicker they come,

a great crowd, and I in the middle.”

The encirclement lasted for moments, then the crowd

cooperated with the police, who asked them

and ordered them off the street. They retreated

to the borders of Lafayette Park. There they

stayed, keeping an eye on the 25 of us

who stood at the curb of the White House sidewalk.

In the middle of the park, drummers—Native Americans—

drummed banging day and night; the President

won’t sleep til he calls off Shock and Awe.

Wave to the drummers, dance to the drumming. Sing,

and dance to our own singing, ululation,

and “Give peace a chance …” Wave

to the peace marchers, wave to the police, wave

to the children of Iraq. Everyone I saw was nonviolent.

The man with the bullhorn and the blowups of abortions

disappeared. Counterdemonstrators disappeared.

Everywhere I looked was peace. Each woman

cared for the women around her, and love grew.

Love, and love returning, love and returning

love, love reverberating, love magnifying.

I felt love palpable and saw love

manifest—it’s pink. Air and light turned

dawn-pink. The color I imagine Yin.

The color of aired blood, the pink mist

at explosions. I was desperate for miracle,

perhaps the reason I could open my arms wide

and gather up great big pink

balls of Peace, and hurl them east toward Iraq,

and turn and hurl them at the White House.

I’m not the only one. Other women

also threw pink balls of Peace

to the Iraqi children, to protect them,

and at the White House. “Catch, George.”

“Catch, Laura.” The many kinds of police

kept arriving—first, the Law Enforcement

Park Rangers, who I think are Federal Police;

then came the Metropolitan Police, which included

mounted police and motorcycle cops,

then SWAT teams / TAC squads. Easy

to practice nonviolence with the friendly

Park Rangers. “How about giving me your Code Pink

button, for my wife?” We petted and talked

to the horses. But the SWAT / TACs—one-way

glass over faces, everyone in the same

robot stance, a rank of robots, weapons—

any women? can’t tell—impervious to us.

The officer shouting and giving us

orders was a D.C. cop. “Get off

the street. Arrests will begin in twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes and more passed. He announced

again and again, “Arrests in twenty minutes.”

They didn’t really want to arrest us;

they hoped we would go away. We were

having a standoff. Without discussion,

we 25 women all together,

took slow steps backward through

the yellow tape. We waved our arms and pink

scarves and ribbons, waving goodbye

to our supporters, who stood witness on the 3

far sides of the park, waving goodbye

to the police; we are getting off the street.

We walked backward, broke the yellow tape,

up onto the curb, into the “restricted

zone (White House sidewalk).”

Slowly, imperceptibly moving so as not to provoke

violent arrest. Singing, “Salaam, peace,

shalom.” We reached the White House fence.

Two grandmothers ago, our ancestresses

chained themselve to this black iron fence.

I held its bars in my hands, laid my face