WITH PAPER FOR FEET
SECTION ONE
WHITE WOMAN WALKS ACROSS CHINA WITH PAPER FOR FEET
Each night, the same approach to a different small house: QÄng nÄ, yÄ« diÄn diÄn fĂ n, diÄn diÄn shuÄ. WĂč yĂ o chÄ« fĂ n.Please, a little rice, a little water. I need to eat. DuĆ xiĂš.Thank you. The right words coming out of my waĂŹ guĂł rĂ©n mouth.
Each night, setting up a bivvy against the wind, lighting a small light, writing in my journal stories, memories, forgotten names.
Sometimes Iâd get lost in words, stay two or three days. Children would approach: NÄ weĂŹshÄnme gÄo cÄ a? Why do you do this?
Iâd reply WĆ de mĆ qÄ«n chĆ«mĂČ wĆ, My mother haunts me, and theyâd nod.
The brave would act out my need for a shrine. Sometimes where I camped, Iâd leave paper ribbons, small piles of stone. Paper was the only thing to get heavier, not lighter, with use. My words, my attempt to find my motherâs birthscape, how or if I could fit into it: heavy.
Yet for all my vocabulary I could not talk, could not trade words, despite having paper for feet.
Could not send my words home, for I didnât know where,
and what parcel box could fit all of me? Nine months of wandering, soaking my feet in flooded fields, pressing pulp to new paper, bleeding ink. White woman alone, her Chinese half never showing.
Finally at the foot of an anonymous hill my mother drifted in
with the mist. QÄng nÄ, mÄmÄ, gÄi wĆ yÄ« diÄn diÄn fĂ n.
Please, mother, give me something to live on. I could not see her face, but before she dissolved she spoke my name.
THE TALKING SKULL
adapted from a Nigerian folktale
A hunter
in search of food for his family
walked and walked
but found no prey.
The plains stretched on
and the sun beat
and he was weary.
There was one tree
that stretched its branches
and he sat beneath it.
Propped his feet
on a white rock
and drank.
When he was rested, he noticed
the rock had two eye-holes
and teeth. Alone
in the vast expanse
except for the sky,
he addressed the rock
in a casual fashion:
âWhat brought you here, my friend?â
Then he laughed,
grateful no one could hear him.
So perhaps it is to be forgiven
if the hunter jumped
when the skull fixed him
in its empty gaze and said,
âTalking brought me here!â
Food and family forgotten,
the hunter ran to the king
to tell him of this wonder
and the king
and all his attendants
went in stately fashion
to see the talking skull.
The plains stretched on
and the sun beat
so it is perhaps to be forgiven
if the king was weary
and rather hot and bothered
when at last they reached the one tree
that stretched its branches.
The king ordered the hunter
to show him the wonder
and the hunter found the skull
and addressed it in a friendly fashion:
âGreetings again! Please tell my kingâ
what brought you here?â
But the skull
was silent.
For a long time
the hunter pleaded and implored
questioned and queried
but the skull
might well have been
a white rock to prop his feet on
for all the good it did.
The king was angry.
He had come a long way
and had expected wisdom from beyond the grave
or at least a miracle
that befit his station.
He had his champion
lop off the hunterâs head
and began the long trip home.
Beyond the one tree
the plains stretched on.
Beneath the tree
the skull rolled grinning
over to the hunterâs head and asked,
âWhat brought you her...