Читать книгу Seeking the Cave - James P. Lenfestey - Страница 19
ОглавлениеOne bullet train shuddered as another bullet passed until we arrived at Tokyo’s Narita Station. We found Margaret and Ed waiting for us in the flight departure lounge. We greeted each other like old friends, thrilled to be embarking together into the literary heart of the Middle Kingdom. I marveled again at the magic that had brought us together, and ran over how it happened.
In 1998, with our last child nearly out of the house, I abandoned my sinecure on the Star Tribune editorial board to pursue the writer’s path. After publishing a few small books, curating a poetry reading series, and founding a poetry festival, in 2005 I earned a residency at the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts in nearby Red Wing, Minnesota, a month of unencumbered writing time heretofore unknown in my adult life. I worked with Scott King, master of the press-in-residence, Red Dragonfly Press, to set twenty-two of my Han-shan-style poems in lead type, a meditative process that slowed my body and mind.
SETTING LEAD TYPE
Every piece is heavy, every movement slow.
Care of this kind one is not accustomed to.
That letter, is it worth the trouble? That sound,
is it really a bird fluttering, or a door closing?
When every sacred choice is made,
the lines are bound with a simple string,
tied with a common knot.
Every step that comes after—the paper, the ink,
the bookstore browser—reveals only the lightness.
I had brought with me a large carton of books on Chinese poetry and literature, treasures accumulated over several decades. When not setting type, I settled into my monk-like writer’s cell at the Anderson Center to write and read. The first book I opened was The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, translated by Red Pine, a bilingual edition published in 2000 but new to me. Stretched across the title page was a photograph of Cold Mountain’s cave!
I couldn’t believe it. Veiled in mist and mythology since the T’ang, a cave most scholars thought didn’t exist suddenly had a physical presence. Could Red Pine, a.k.a. Bill Porter of Port Townsend, Washington, take me to the cave he had photographed? I wrote to the publisher but received no reply.
That winter I told the story of “seeking the cave” to Allan Kornblum, founder of Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, a friend with whom I regularly shared soup, sandwiches, and literary and family sagas. I mentioned the photograph I’d seen. Allan said the publisher used to work for him. A few days later I found Allan’s voice on my office answering machine: “Don’t say I never did you a favor. Here’s Bill Porter’s phone number.”
I immediately punched in the number. A male voice answered. “Will you take me to Cold Mountain’s cave?” I said. “Funny you should ask,” Bill Porter responded. “I just brought a group of friends to China, to visit Buddhist shrines. You can be the second.”
Right then we worked out the broad outline of the trip, a monthlong literary pilgrimage that would include visits to other poets’ shrines along the way, ending at Cold Mountain cave. Only one hitch remained. To make costs affordable, Bill would hire a van for five passengers plus the driver. I needed to find three more pilgrims.
Mike eagerly climbed on board. He was a member of my raucous group of poetry lovers who met monthly for breakfast, when we routinely violated the well-known coffee shop admonition—“Please, for the benefit of yourself and those around you, no poetry!” Mike had a poet’s ear as well as eye—most of his films were about poets and writers. Although unfamiliar with Cold Mountain, he was eager to document the madness.
But how would I find two more people with the time, resources, and spirit to undertake this strange pilgrimage? I had no idea.
That January my neighborhood bookstore, Birchbark Books, founded by novelist Louise Erdrich, hosted the first event for my handmade book, Han-Shan Is the Cure for Warts, published by Red Dragonfly Press. The room was packed, as much a tribute to Louise, who generously introduced me, and to my years of community activities, as to my poetry, known to only a few. Before I launched into my reading, I told the story of my discovery of the way to Cold Mountain, if only two more pilgrims would join me. After the reading, Margaret and Ed stood first in line at the book-signing table. “We want to go to China with you,” they said.
I heard in the word “want” the kind of hunger I felt for this journey as well. They were not “interested,” or “wondering,” or “curious,” or “debating” with spouses or co-workers. They offered an immediate “yes” to the wandering heart of this strange pilgrim journey. I offered an immediate “yes” in return.
Since then I had learned their story. Before moving to our Minneapolis neighborhood a decade ago, they had lived in Tokyo for three years, where Ed ran a high-tech company. They had visited business hotels in China but longed to experience the heartbeat of the country outside its shiny commercial islands, and they both revered books. Margaret, a feisty Canadian who had earned a master’s degree in library science before entering business, served on many boards in the literary community. When Ed’s outside businesses allowed, he did the same. And the timing was right, their two sons out of the house, one a practicing Buddhist.
Seasoned travelers, as Mike and I were not, they arrived at Narita with international cell phones and iPods stuffed with literature and music. Mike had his camera and a satchel of tape. I had my books, pens, and two empty notebooks.
In the departure lounge I glanced at an abandoned English-language newspaper, the last I would see for three weeks. The headline burned with the news that California grasslands were on fire, climate change coming home to roost.
Bashō wrote in 1692:
Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers’
imperial dreams
He was echoing his literary ancestor Du Fu eight centuries earlier:
The whole country devastated
only mountains and rivers remain.
In springtime, at the ruined castle,
the grass is always green.
As a journalist who covered climate science for two decades, I could draw little comfort from that lineage of human folly, as glaciers melted, rivers ran dry, summer grasses burned.
The airline called our Beijing flight, and Ed and Margaret, Mike and Jim disappeared two by two into the ark of our own private Chinas one last time before touching down on the real China ahead.
NIGHT FLIGHT TO BEIJING
I tap my passport pocket,
fingertips thumping outside, heart inside.
Shaking all over, the Airbus lifts off.
Next to me, my friend sighs and sleeps,
resting sharp eyes for bright colors ahead.
Other friends relax, iPods chattering and singing.
In my lap, the old poems of China and Japan.
I scrawl my crude versions because my pen won’t stop.
