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mountain.
    They played with the chi, drawing circles in the sky,
    lifting earth to sky, pulling sky
    to earth, swirling the controllable universe.
    Then walked off to do their daily ordinary tasks.)
    Wittman, non-moneymaker, fled
    the financial district. Already dressed,
    the same clothes asleep and awake, he merged
    with a crowdstream, and boarded a westbound
    train. Go deep in-country.
    Find China. Hong Kong is not China.
    The flow of crowd stopped, jammed inside
    the train. Wittman was one among the mass
    that shoved and was shoved onto the area
    over the coupling between cars. They
    would ride standing pressed, squashed,
    breathing one another’s breath, hoisting
    and holding loads—Panasonic and Sony
    ACs—above heads. The train
    started, the crowd lurched, the air conditioners
    rocked, almost fell but didn’t. Men
    prized through the packed-tight crowd,
    squeezed themselves from one car to the next,
    and back again. A man, not a vendor,
    jostled through, lugging a clinking
    weight of bottled drinks that could’ve smashed
    the upturned faces of the short people. Bags
    smelled of cooked meat. I have food,
    I can do anything. I know I can.
    I know I can. Hard-seat travel.
    Suffer more, worth more. The destination
    more worth it. The Chinese have not
    invented comfort. People fell asleep
    on their feet. They work hard, they’re tired,
    grateful for a spot of room to rest. Rest.
    Rest. A boy slept astraddle his father,
    father asleep too, 2 sleeping
    heads, head at peace against head.
    Had Wittman and his son ever shared one
    undistracted moment of being quiet?
    Though tall, he could not see above the crowd
    and their belongings. What country was rolling past
    unappreciated? The train—a local—made stops.
    More people squeezed aboard. On and on
    and on, yet on the border of immense China.
    You’ve heard, always heard: China’s
    changing. China’s changed. China gone.
    Old China nevermore. Too late.
    Too late. Too late. Too late.
    Voyage far, and end up at another
    globalized city just like the one you left.
    Vow not to stop until you can alight
    in green country. Country, please remain.
    Villages, remain. Languages, remain.
    Civilizations, remain. Each village
    a peculiar civilization. The mosh between
    cars did empty. You got to sit
    in the seat you’d paid for. Hillsides
    streaming by on the north; on the south,
    a river. Arched doors built into
    slopes of hills. Cry “Open sesame!”
    and enter the good earth. People walking
    the wide, pathless ground, placing on the thresholds
    flowers and red paper, wine and food,
    incense. Ah, altars, doorsills of graves.
    Ah, Ching Ming. All over China,
    and places where Chinese are, populations
    are on the move, going home. That home
    where Mother and Father are buried. Doors
    between heaven and earth open wide.
    Our dead throng across the bourn,
    come back to meet us, eat and drink with us,
    receive our gifts, and give us gifts.
    Listen for, and hear them; they’re listening for
    and hear us. Serve the ancestors come back
    to visit. Serve them real goods. If
    no real goods, give symbols.
    Enjoy, dear guests, enjoy life again.
    Read the poems rising in smoke. Rituals
    for the dead continue, though Communist Revolution,
    Cultural Revolution, though diaspora. These hills
    could be the Altamont Pass, and the Coast Range
    and Sierras that bound the Central Valley. I
    have arrived in China at the right time, to catch
    the hills green.
          And where shall
I
be buried?
    In the Chinese Cemetery on I-5?
    Will they allow my white spouse? We integrate
    the cemetery with our dead bodies? It’s been my
    embarrassing task to integrate social functions.
    Can’t even rest at the end. Can’t
    rest alongside my father and mother.
    Cremate me then. Burn me to ashes. Dig me into
    the peat dirt of the San Joaquin Valley.
    Dig some more of me into the ‘aina of Hawai‘i.
    Leftovers into the sipapu
    navel at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and more
    leftovers at the feet of oaks