Reading, Cave, Athos
Reading
He died in the false dawn. The children
continued on with the boy’s ghost
in the yucca wood they picked for fire
in the sun-warmed desert stones they chose
for their hearth, in the roots of the wondilla
grass and stalks of sugar cane they ate
for supper. Naked they walked along the stream as far
as they could go, then up the valley aglow with casuarinas,
creamy white bamberas, the pink of gums and eucalyptus,
up the slopes of mica and quartz, flecks of blue-green beryl,
their heat-dazed steps, sun swelling thirst, the salt-pans
a distant memory, bottle-green belts streaked with yellow
now a shimmering hum, blaze of butterflies swarming
up high in a rainbow cloud, they climbed, onto the crest,
looked down at the broad slab-sided rift, the mist
clearing to woodland, a slow-moving ribbon of water,
reed-lined, dotted with water birds, another country
the old woman stood under the stratocumulus layers,
unfolded the songmap, tracing the signs on the bark, each
pmere pivotal place revealed: broken line to circle, arcs, half-
moons, half-arrows, squares within squares, diamond and wave,
kuruwarri birthmarks, spirit children dreaming songs making,
remaking, awaran lightning struck the rock, Alhalkere nosepeg,
Piltawoldli possum house, Manaji potatoes, Tyimama sandhill
lines interlink site to Willunga-dust site, as it happened
at the windy place by the river Warriparinga: Kulutuwi
killed a tabu emu. His two half-brothers murder him. His uncle
Tjilbruke, sees the sugar ants on the track carrying bits of bloody
hair, red ochre, and knows the brothers had lied
when they told him Kulutuwi had gone elsewhere
to hunt, that they had killed him and the smoke-drying
of the body had already begun. And so in the evening,
after the brothers dance for him, after he sings the camp to sleep,
Tjilbruke, master fire-maker, surrounds their hut with morthi-
bark kindling and piles of grass, takes the iron-pyrite baruke and paldari
flintstone to light the tinder, crying out, “You are burning! Camp
on fire!” The brothers rush out and he spears them. Tjilbruke then
wraps his nephew Kulutuwi’s body and carries him to the spring
at Tulkudangga beach to complete the smoking ceremony,
follows the route south down the coast, each place he rests he
weeps, his mekauwe-tears seep into the ground, a new fresh-
water spring opens up, a new name springs forth: Karildilla
to Tainbarilla to Karkungga to Wirruwarrungga to Witawodli
to Kongaratinga to Patpangga, and at Yankalilla, the place
of falling apart, he finds a cave for Kulutuwi, lays him down
in the hollow dark depths of the cave, he walks further into
the cave, he passes through the many mouths of the cave, comes
out far inland covered in yellow dust that he shakes off as yellow
ochre, he walks on to Lonkowar to spear a gray currawong, rubs
its fat over his body, ties its feathers to his arms with hair-string,
he makes it happen: Kulutuwi departs the earth for the sky,
transforming into tjilbruke, the glossy ibis, his body left behind
a memorial martowala outcrop rock, source of baruke
at Barrukungga, the place of hidden fire, cairn north
of Nairne in the Adelaide Hills, sun-veined vanishing-
lines, viatic tracks children follow home, tired but happy
Cave
Celadon fragments, hearth features, in situ
stoneware, hammered gold image of Shou
Xing, god of longevity, bones, sherds, coins
left in the camps, yet not one written scrap
no note no letter no list no diary, a name
scratched on a cliff-face, of those disappeared
building the lines West, blasting tunnels, carving
roadbeds out of mountains, jup seen you ritual,
search the Sierra for the remains of lost friends
One Wong Hau-hon worked on the Canadian Pacific,
reminisced forty-four years later, H.M. Lai translates:
I first came to Canada in 1882 on a sailing vessel.... After our arrival at Yale, we had only worked two days when the white foreman ordered the gang to which I was assigned to move to North Bend.... Some died as they rested beneath the trees or laid on the ground. When I saw this I felt miserable and sad....
When we were passing China Bar on the way, many of the Chinese died from an epidemic. As there were no coffins to bury the dead, the bodies were stuffed into rock crevices or beneath the trees to await their arrival. Those whose burials could not wait, were buried on the spot in boxes made of crude thin planks hastily fastened together. There were even some who were buried in the ground wrapped only in blankets or grass mats. New graves dotted the landscape and the sight sent chills up and down my spine....
Twenty charges were placed and ignited but only eighteen blasts went off. However, the white foreman, thinking that all of the dynamite had gone off, ordered the Chinese workers to enter the cave to resume work. Just at that moment the remaining two charges suddenly exploded, Chinese bodies flew from the cave as if shot from a cannon. Blood and flesh were mixed in a horrible mess....
Later I moved again and worked in a barren wilderness for more than a year. There more than 1,000 Chinese laborers perished from epidemics. In all, more than 3,000 Chinese died during the building of the railroad from diseases and accidents....
I am now 62 and I have experienced many hardships and difficulties in my life.... Yet now the government is enforcing 43 discriminatory immigration regulations against us. The Canadian people surely must have short memories!
Athos
All those monks on Athos
dotting the rugged Peninsula
upkeeping monasteries on ridges
deep in the folds, along winding
cobbled paths, deep in the woods,
they sleep for three hours,
rise into prayer, each chore
a prayer, pure divine act, pilgrims
blessed, ferry from Ouranoupolis
to kiss the priest’s hand
Meals of fruits and vegetables, grains
and fish, I see them onscreen
working in the orchards, the fields
in prayer, painting and engineering
in prayer, archiving and sewing
In quiet contemplation, centuries
before and after, pass in the ever after
All their skills brought to the table
Beards flowing in the ritual air
Waiting list for residence long
Walk to the iron cross by the sea
A hand raises the rite of centuries
Sacred garden, bleeding icon,
song sung by the grace of God
and their sovereign state their land
kept free of women and children
under the eye of the Virgin Mary
Jeffrey Yang is the author of Hey, Marfa; Vanishing-Line; and An Aquarium. The poems in this issue from "Langkasuka" will be published in his forthcoming book Line and Light.