I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston Read Free Book Online Page B

like outdoor kitchens
    and laundries and pantries and even bedrooms.
    An old squatting grandma was stirring a wok.
    Another was washing vegetables. They paid no
    mind to the stranger shadowing by. Kitty
    cats and a big pig and chickens—swine flu,
    bird flu—slinked, lumbered, scratched,
    came and went into and out of houses.
    That alley jigjagged into another
    alley that opened on to the public square.
    La plaza at the center of the pueblo. And at the center
    of the plaza was the waterworks, not a fountain
    but two porcelain troughs with PVC
    pipes above and below, and faucets in rows.
    Cupping water in worship-like hands
    (turn off tap with elbow), quaff
    as if welcoming myself with ceremony,
    joining myself to this place. Drinking,
    aware that I, a citizen from the wealthiest,
    squanderingest country, am taking precious water.
    Unpurified tap water. Aware that I
    risk my life, I throw in my lot
    with the health of this common village. Sit
    right down on the curbstone on the east
    side of the square. Face the last of the sun.
    Unpack notebook and pen. Write:
    arrive
    adobe
    China
    home
    At home in a civilization kind with plazas,
    containing me and the sky and a square of earth.
    Father Sky
    Mother Earth
    It’s not only Native Americans who pray
    Father Sky Mother Earth. Chinese
    say Father Sky Mother Earth too.
    In the almanac of stars, moons, luck, and farming:
    Ba
T’ien
Ma
Day
    Doff sneakers, doff socks, feel
    the ground with naked soles. The floor of the plaza
    is warm and smooth; skin meets skin.
    Chinese generations walked
    barefoot here, sweated, oiled,
    spat upon, tamped the black soil,
    which they could’ve planted, so rich. Now,
    the farmers, men and women, homeward plod.
    A goatherd following his goats and sheep,
    a duckherd his ducks, light and long shadows
    of many legs oscillating. They came upon
    the writing man—poet!? retired philosopher!?—
    in the act of public writing. Quietly,
    they peered over his shoulders, peered over
    his right (writing) hand, peered over
    his other hand. By calligraphy, they can tell
    character and fate. Readers jostled
    one another for the spot directly in front,
    looked at his writing upside down,
    craned their necks to see it from his point
    of view. English! The Brave Language. But
    his Chinese! A boy’s Chinese.
    The man draws like a boy. “Read, la.
    Read, la-a.” Our not-so-ugly American
    dared recite loudly, in his best language
    and second-best language, the 4-word
    poems. Audience clapped hands, and laughed,
    and mimicked, and asked, “You’ve come from what
    far place, aw?” “I was born in the Beautiful
    Country.” “Aiya-a. Beautiful Country.
    Is Beautiful Country truly beautiful and rich?”
    “Well …” (
Well
, English, American.) “Beautiful
    Country People are like me, not too
    beautiful, not too ugly, not too
    rich, not too poor. But some
    too rich, too poor. Most,
    my color skin, tan. Our color
    skin.” Actually, the color skin of the people
    around was darker, darker from working in the sun.
    “I live in Big City. Eighty
    out of one hundred people live in the cities.
    But I am not like everybody.
    Everybody has cars. 2 cars.
    I don’t have one car.
    I don’t want one car.”
    Have
and
want
, same sound, not
    same tone. They pitied him, poor man,
    no car. Audience grew, 50
    souls hearing the sojourner who’d seen the Beautiful
    Country, who’d learned to write their horizontal alphabet.
    People vied with one another, please,
    dear writer traveller teacher, come
    to our home for rice, and stay the night.
    A confident village, the people not shy
    to bring you home and see their hovel.
    He chose a solid-seeming man, mine
    good host, and comradely put himself in yoke.
    The farmers, washing up in public, showed off
    the on-and-off faucets and the pipes. They filled
    wood buckets and plastic buckets and jars.
    Wittman asked for a carrying pole across
    his neck, above his backpack, which steadied
    and cushioned the bouncy, springy, sloshing,