Wang Ping
(China – USA)
The River in Our Blood
A Sonnet Crown
For Lord Bruce
I
The geese are painting the sky with a V, my lord
The Mississippi laughs with its white teeth
How fast winter flees from the lowland, my lord
And how’s the highland where songs forever seethe?
At the confluence, I sing of the prairie, my lord
My joy and sorrow soar with rolling spring
Its thunder half bird, half mermaid, my lord
No poppies on hills, only ghost warriors’ calling
Today is chunfeng—we say shared spring, you equinox
Two spirits, one on phoenix wings, one on lion’s seat
Across the sea, kindred spirits, my lord
Prayer through breaths, laughing children on the street
Let’s open our gift, acorn of small things
Let river move us without wants or needs
II
Cycad
for Robert Bjorgum
Let river move us without wants or needs
Let cycads carry their fruit in naked seeds
No flower to adorn your heart, roots pulling
Food from sand, stones. What magic in your seed
White flesh burns the nerves of the ignorant
What desire or love wedged in your coned seed?
Along colored veins—Age of Cycads—rings
Of truths. In your dried palm, an open seed
Naked to sun and moon, herbivores’ teeth carry
You across the chasm. In the crown, a seed
Running from pole to pole—the Sea was one
Body, unhinged, spewing lava into your seed
You’re not shadows from Permian of China
Look at this beauty–so simple in your agate seed
III
Look at this beauty-so simple in your agate seed
A blue jay calls from the river’s blue mouth
What runs from a roof, flows to the East Sea?
What winds towards north, then spills into South?
Last night on the highland, snow and rain
Winter’s muddy feet drag behind spring’s fawn
In the valley, sounds of a whooping crane
A wheel barrow, copper etched by the dawn
The river has broken the rein of ice
Swirling boulders, trees, chairs and baby swings
Cottonwood trees swarmed with screeching mice
How the river laughs flying on eagles’ wings
Truth can’t be drowned in books or winner’s lie
Moon on river’s bend, long day of mayfly
IV
Moon on river’s bend, long day of mayfly
No sound or word from Damascus’ desert
Limestone ridge along Silk Route—face of Dubai
Crumbles—wind in hyssop, thyme, wild mustard
This flayed land, so raw, parched, only seeds fly
To take roots in the conquerors’ footprints
Dusk weeps like sand through hands, pulling first cry
From Azan’s throat, a black slave as god’s imprints
Home under the ash cloud, darting swallows
From hospitals, roses on broken walls
Tanks at the border. Shadows at ghettos
Remorse in maze—the last muezzin calls
The Dervish whirls, palm to earth, palm to sky
Who gave us the hand, so humble, so sublime?
V
Who gave us the hand, so humble, so sublime?
Which hunter caught the fire in the bird’s eye?
My lord, your falcon leads the path of ice and fire
The gate is open for those chosen to climb
The volcano came alive this morning
Glaciers slide into the womb of the earth
How do you stop a heart from trembling
As ice cuts into the fire of new birth
Along the wind path, Knight of thousand hearts
In the East Sea, Maiden of thousand hands
Mist wraps the islands and your boat of glass
The horse calls his master from distant lands
The warrior draws his sword from Arthur’s Seat
How do you keep the same, back from the deep?
VI
In Memory of Jan…
How do you keep the same, back from the deep?
Dripping preserve, the brain sits in gloved hands
All cells are programmed to die—your leap
Of faith, dimpled behind silvery strands
So beautiful, your great love…What’s matter?
Breath, ladybug on a sunbathed window
Maverick at crossroad, fish jumping river…
Is mind matter? The heart, seat of joy and sorrow
Holds stubborn cells. Outside the funeral
Light ripples across sky and prairie grass
Something has taken us by the viscera
A crowd of spirits, darkly, behind the glass
Immortality kills us in the first place
The heart beats alone, keeping its own pace
VII
In collaboration with Ryan
The heart beats alone, keeping its own pace
Fear, rage, sorrow—storms beyond our range
The river bows and bends, birthing new space
To die and live again–this constant change
Veins of water across the delta wrist, opening
Cupped hands…fish, reeds, frogs mating in puddles
Home… where cranes stop for a drink, then rising
Back to their birthplace. The spirit shuttles
Between heaven and earth—how you follow
This primordial path? The brain, a wrinkled mass
Keeps us at bay, eyes on the black swallow
From distant sea…messenger through tall grass
Memory split from the Fountain of Youth
You hold us to the place– this beat, this truth
VIII
You hold it to this place– this beat, this truth
Wild turkey for guests, yam in sweet rice stuffing
Peacock dance, flamenco hands, sorghum spirits soothe
Strayed ghosts. In China, there’s no Thanksgiving
Good words flow from glass to glass. Ten thousand geese
In the sky, ten thousand whales from north to south
Sounds of flute, a pining soul no one can appease
A lover turned into a stone at the river’s mouth
A crazed mother, crying for her burst bubble
Breaths of taichi, circling with phoenix flows
What arrows can silence your fire? A true singer
Soars over the cawing of ten thousand crows
We feed ghosts to kill an inherited shame
Nobody claims rivers at the endgame
IX
No one claims rivers at the end of game
Swans trumpet from Head of the Mississippi
Along the trails—snow, dogs, woodpeckers–same
Difference as children slide with whoopee
Laugh, and rivers rumble like summer nights
On sandstone bluffs, lovers watch crew boats dart
Like insects. Walking on water is not a sleight
Of hands but an instinct, echoes of distant stars
And sturgeons charging without food or sleep
Keep going, says the master, one stroke at a time
Breathe between waves…his voice steep
from tumors, yet he stands, furious and sublime
What arrow points us to grace, here and now?
A swan’s touch, neck bending into a bow
X
A swan’s touch, neck bending into a bow
A storm without premonition: pines, oaks, alders
Ancient dreams–snapped at the waist, chopped trailers
All the trees that should have been down are down
Said Ranger Bob, his oars dipping like wings of falcon
In the river, mussels lure hungry fish, shooting eggs
Into their gills—teeth to hang on, and legs
For home. The St. Croix unfolds a silk ribbon
Our boat cuts–no sound of humans–only turtles bathing
On rocks, and horseflies taking chunks of meat!
How our breath moves with the damselflies—their wings
Of butterfly, neon turquoise & black so sweet
We raise our oars to follow summer flood
The river runs through us—our kin, our blood
XI
In Memory of Todd
The river runs through us—our kin, our blood
Big Dipper, solar winds, life in tannin earth
From Solon Spring to Prescott, 250 miles of flood
We follow clams, milkweeds…odes from same birth
We skid rapids glittered with gold—the stars girth
Our napes. Namekagen, home for sturgeon dreams
Mahnomen—berries for fish, loons, our daily hearth
Spirits of Minnesota, Wisconsin… In salty streams
We turn boats with boils and eddies, our screams
Echoed by thrushes, tents full of stubborn
Mosquitoes, thunders, yet when coffee steams
Through the rain, and mist ties the river into a ribbon
We sit, and the world within begins to unravel
As each blade of grass turns with its angel
XII
Every blade of grass turns with its angel
Every breath we make churns your heartbeats
A child becomes Father’s man in the cradle
A wave is a wave is a wave regardless of our defeats
A lie bends and bends around the purple night
At twilight the mask unveils a scorched soul
A cycle of 64 days of riches from the Scorpio kite
The way is open, then shuts with a gaping O
The hammer, anvil and stirrup, the smallest bone
In the sea of cochlea, a spiral, a million fingers
Brushing ecstasy to the base of the throne
A ripple is a ripple is a ripple forever seeking the seekers
This is the gift I owed you from future and past
This is my eye—blindly—in the river wild and fast
XIII
For Chen Guangcheng, the Blind Lawyer from China
This is my eye—blindly—in the river wild and fast
Through the steely gaze, towards a promised freedom
Rumors storm, back and forth, between ocean currents
Machines clank to grind a small man’s plea for freedom
Not for asylum or paradise, not for money or fame
All I want is a room in this giant country, a freedom
To take children to school, to guide my sisters out
Of the maze, free to be mothers again, free
To raise the young, grow old in peace, a place where
Hunger, prison or death can’t blackmail freedom
Where the poor, the blind, the small and defeated
Can live in dignity and joy. Freedom is never free
Must pave with eyes, ears, hands…brick by brick
With a heart willing to bleed till it breaks free
XIV
A heart willing to bleed till it breaks free
The air drags daggers through nose, lungs and spleen
Across Duluth streets—flashflood, raging trees
At Fort Collins, wrathful gods for our deeds
The spill sprayed with dispersants, black turned white
No flies would lay lava, rotten ships, reeds…
“We’ve been eatin their evidence!” shouts Mr. Waddle
In his fist, a shrimp with deformed brain, legs & seeds
All the blood wants is flowing to the heart
All the rivers dream is running to the sea
A thousand flags, a thousand hearts and hands
The road ends here, splits into a bird’s feet
Please forgive what we made with our greed
Let rivers move without our want or need
Crown
Let rivers move without our want or need
This beauty–so simple in its agate seed
Moon on river’s bend, long day of mayfly
Who gave us the hand, so humble, so sublime?
Our heart keeps beating at its own pace
Back from the deep, how do you keep the same?
You hold us to the place– this beat, this faith
Nobody claims rivers at the endgame
A swan’s touch, neck bending into a bow
The river runs through us—our kin, our blood
Every blade of grass turns with its angel
My eye—blindly—in the water wild and fast
A heart willing to bleed till it breaks free
My lord, the geese are painting the sky with a V
Ten Thousand Waves
On the evening of 5 February 2004 at Morecambe Bay in North West England, 21 Chinese immigrants were drowned by an incoming tide off the Lancashire while picking cockles. The victims were mostly young men and women from Fujian and Shanghai. The youngest was 18.
Xie Xiao Wen
On the night of the Lantern Festival
We stream into the sea
Jumbos, tiernels
Three-forked prongs
The wind bites our ears, hands and toes
Home, we say, home
And tears streak our rubber sleeves
On the night of riddles and light
The moon is full behind thick clouds
We cockle, cockling
In the sand of the distant North Wales Sea
Wu Hong Kang
We pat the sand, we pat the sand
Teasing cockles to the cold surface
We dig, we pick, we break our backs
Bagging cockles for ten pounds
They say we could return
When the bag is full
But home is far away
In the dark, we can’t make out the sea
No stars point our path to the shore
Wind comes from all directions
Cutting our bones
How empty is desire, foaming
On the cold North Wales Sea
Chen Ai Qin
Every night since I left home
I’ve been folding a boat
To rest my aching bones
How thin is the paper
Paler than winter
What’s 365 x 365?
Or divide?
A boat full of bleeding hearts
Home—all the heart wants
Is to be called home again
Across the silent North Wales Sea
Ling Qin Ying
How tall has our dragon-eye tree grown?
I’ve promised you, my little girl
To come home when the tree blooms
We’ll pick the fruits and sell them to pay for your school
But the wind is cold
My back broken from bending over the sea
Cockling, cockling in the quicksand
The sea is rising to my chest
My little girl, please forgive your Mama
Forgive the eyes
Decaying in the bed of the North Wales Sea
Guo Nian Zhu
Our hands ache from cramming
Our feet numb in winter’s clutch
Indeed, we long for home—Yuanxiao dumplings
On the Eve of the New Year’s moon
Steaming hearts of sesame, red beans
Its sticky skin seals our bad deeds
Tongues of gods
Oh, home—pining of the soul
The moon has completed many a cycle
But not our dream, listless
On the foaming North Wales Sea
Lin Guo Hua, Wu Jia Zhen, Chen Mu Yu
The lichee tree I planted is blossoming
White flowers hide under dark green
The first moon comes and goes
But I haven’t returned as promised
Lanterns, riddles, yuanxiao dumpling
Lion dance, songs, children on stilts
My love hovers in the deep shadow
Lotus lamp on the tree, unlit
Who will wipe tears from her lichee face?
Who will sail me home from the North Wales Sea?
Lichees blush on the young tree
Birds and bees feast with children
My love lingers under the clustered fruit
Her skin sags from too much weeping
Tides ebb and flow with the moon
Our house is empty, covered in tall weeds
I walk on the sand, eyes on the sea
Who can fill the hollow hearts
In the bottomless North Wales Sea?
Lichees ripen on the tall tree
Its fragrance lasts three short days
My love harvests with rusty shears
A bundle of lichee, a tear-soaked sleeve
They say the fruit, dried or fresh, cures toothache and heart pain
But who will get me home before she fades away?
They say you get beans if you sow beans
Oh, sweet lichee, is it your fault
I’m still drifting on the bitter North Wales Sea?
(Lichee, a fruit tree from Fujian, ripens in clusters. Too fragile to be picked individually, it must be cut at the end of the cluster, hence lychee: li zhi—to be severed from the tree)
Lin Guo Gang
父母在，不远游
父母在，不远游
父母在，不远游
When father and mother are around
The son does not wander far from home
Lin Li Sui
Ten thousand waves
Call my mother
Sorrow
A statue facing the sea
Raven hair bleached by salty wind
Go home, Mother
The shore is empty, the net
Tangled under your feet
Go home
Pray for your son
Broken in the wild North Wales Sea
Guo Bing Long
Ten thousand waves
Wash me to the bay
My wife in the yam fields, gazing towards the sea
Who will unfold your fists
That feed our son, our aging parents?
Ten thousand apologies
My wind-chapped beauty
Pray for your ill-starred man
Wailing from the forbidden North Wales Sea
Wang Ming Lin
Ten thousand waves
Push me to the shore
My son skips rocks on the rolling sea
Will he hit me, a bodiless soul
Foam among endless waves
Will he raise a lantern on my path
A soul bodiless
Floating in the swollen North Wales Sea
Lin Zhi Fang, Yu Hui
We know the tolls: 23—Rockaway, NY, 58—Dover, England, 18—Shenzhen, 25—South Korea, and many more
We know the methods: walk, swim, fly, metal container, back of a lorry, ship’s hold
We know how they died: starved, raped, dehydrated, drowned, suffocated, homesick, heartsick, worked to death, working to death
We know we may end up in the same boat
Xu Yu Hua
Tossed on the communist road
We chose capitalism through great perils
All we want is a life like others
TVs, cars, a house bigger than our neighbors’
Now the tide is rising to our necks
Ice forming in our throats
No moon shining on our path
No exit from the wrath of the North Wales Sea
WANG XIU YU
I have no time
To make love to my wife
I have no time
To watch my son grow
I have no time
To feed my mother
Cao Chao Kun
Who will see us
In this foaming sea
Who will hear us
In this howling wind
Who will pull us
From this tide faster than a horse
Who will close our eyes
That won’t shut
Until our souls reach the other shore
Highroad of the bitter sea
Please send my bones home
Under the knotted dragon eye tree
Guo Chang Mao
Tread the sand with care
In the tangled weeds, there are hungry ghosts
Tread the waves with care
In each foamy mouth, there is a word
In each word, a soul, unfulfilled
Zhou Xun Chao, Dong Xi Wu,
We move with the sea
Planktons, eels, turtles
The sea carries us
To the land of gold
We’re urchins
Under prickly needles
Tender hearts
We ride currents
Following the Polaris
Our destiny always the same
To feed the old and young
To rest at peace
By the yellow sea
父
母
父母在不远游
不
远
游
Yang Tian Long, Lin You Xing, Chen Ai Qin
Once again
Our blood boils with longing
Children of the Yellow Emperor
Master of the sea
Our ancestors wrestled
With dragons, monsters, nine-headed beasts
Their floating cities
Covered four seas and five continents
Our village—yellow kingdom by the sea
Port of grand adventures
If you don’t believe me
Go stand on the shore of Changle
Where the South meets the East China Sea
You’ll hear junks’ horns in the thick fog
The clash of swords and fine porcelain
Admiral Ho’s robe fluttering in the arctic wind
Oh, fire of three thousand years
Ancestors’ ghosts
Our eyes on the North Star
Our spirits churning for the sea
____________________________________________
Wang Ping was born in Shanghai and came to USA in 1986. She is the founder and director of the Kinship of Rivers project, a five-year project that builds a sense of kinship among the people who live along the Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers through exchanging gifts of art, poetry, stories, music, dance and food. She paddles along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, giving poetry and art workshops along the river communities, making thousands of flags as gifts and peace ambassadors between the Mississippi and the Yangtze Rivers.
Her publications include Flying: Life of Miracles along the Yangtze and Mississippi, memoir (forthcoming from Calumet Press), Ten Thousand Waves, poetry book from Wings Press, 2014, American Visa (short stories, 1994), Foreign Devil (novel, 1996), Of Flesh and Spirit (poetry, 1998), The Magic Whip (poetry, 2003), The Last Communist Virgin (stories, 2007), all from Coffee House, New Generation: Poetry from China Today, 1999 from Hanging Loose Press, Flash Cards: Poems by Yu Jian, co-translation with Ron Padgett, 2010 from Zephyr Press. Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China (2000, University of Minnesota Press, 2002 paperback by Random House) won the Eugene Kayden Award for the Best Book in Humanities. The Last Communist Virgin won 2008 Minnesota Book Award and Asian American Studies Award.
She had many multi-media solo exhibitions: “We Are Water: Kinship of Rivers” a one-month exhibition that brought 100 artists from the Yangtze and Mississippi Rivers to celebrate water (Soap Factory, 2014), “Behind the Gate: After the Flooding of the Three Gorges” at Janet Fine Art Gallery(2007), “All Roads to Lhasa” at Banfill-Lock Cultural Center(2008), “Kinship of Rivers” at the Soap Factory(2011, 12), Great River Museum in Illinois(2012), Fireworks Press at St. Louis(2012), Great River Road Center at Prescott (2012), Wisconsin, Emily Carr University in Vancouver(2013), University of California Santa Barbara(2013), and many other places.
She collaborated with the British filmmaker Isaac Julien on Ten Thousand Waves, a film installation about the illegal Chinese immigration in London, the composer and musician Bruce Bolon, Alex Wand (Grammy award winner), Gao Hong, etc..
She is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council of the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Artist Fellowship, Lannan Foundation Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and the McKnight Artist Fellowship. She received her Distinct Immigrant Award 2014.
www.behindthegateexhibit.wangping.com
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