A Year at River Mountain (29 page)

The nut grove above the river was where we met, in the flattened grass where deer had slept, mist a tongue over water, the sun just risen. She greeted Zhou Yiyuan, who kept glancing up at her face as he showed her the battle sites, and then faded away. Inkling of “nut grove.” Inkling of “the two of us.” And a jasmine vine.

She was restless, then calm, then up to pluck a bud. “My last film was a failure. Never accept roles like that!”

She fell on her back, her forehead troubled. Sun climbed into the clearing.

My finger, heavy, hovered over
Sanjiao-3
, wood-fire,
shu
-stream. Her belly opened. The heart's minister,
Zhongzhu
, abandoned Central Islet; scarlet robes flickered through the trees.

The doctors cross their lawn. So I'm free to go.

I followed her along the smooth track through a tangle of vines back to the river.

Next morning
she
led
me
past shrines and battle sites to the green nut grove, our brief settlement, cathedral of buzzing bees, to Mum and Dad, my sister and her child. My son's cry never woke me; my wife always heard him; she always heard his cry. But now I hear him, if only a word, and the river, the cave, the grass, sun, reed bed, the bamboo spirit, Imogen, everything slips away. Clouds race the day-moon.

S
PIRIT
C
OURTYARD

Song Wei and Frank fly away, low over River Temple and Mound Bell, through the North Gate

W
HITE
C
REVICE

and up to North Pass and nameless darkness. “Not so strange,” she whispered.

H
ALL OF
I
MPRESSION

Fresh paths filling with leaves again, too quickly for a monk to sweep. My old broom's settled high between two tangled stems of the jasmine vine. Why not cast all this as high as I can one last time before I leave? Stop work and listen to the bell ringing the end of the summer day?

Made in England spells and spells cast in Canada and spells in China. Nests I tried to make. Knots I tried to unravel. Points I tried to find. Stop work and listen to the bell.

It's the rose window! How can mind know bell from glass, what shines from what sings? I must remember it isn't the rose we made, it's the rose window. I must remember to replace the plank across the ditch going home.

— Vancouver 03/21/2012