I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (15 page)

Li
is the acting out of veneration and love, not only for parents, for one’s sovereign, for one’s people, but also for “Heaven-and-earth.” … One learns by
Li
to take one’s place gratefully in the cosmos and in history.

—
THOMAS MERTON

liang
—pretty

lick
—strength

loon
—chaos

los derechos de criadas
—the rights of maids

lu
—road

mai
—rice that is growing (rice that is cooked is “fawn”)

mai’a mālei
—fish guardian from Makapu’u to Hanauma on O’ahu; “malei” for short

mele
—song, anthem, chant, poem, poetry

mew; mow
—“cat,” in various dialects

mew (different ideogram from above
)—temple

mien
—face

minamina
—regret a loss

ming
—bright

mm
—no, not

mo
—a sound at the end of a sentence signifying a question

moy
—younger sister, plum

ngum cha
—drink tea

Nosotros no cruzamos la frontera; la frontera nos cruza
.—“We do not cross the border; the border crosses us.” (A slogan of the immigrants’ rights movement)

paniolo
—cowboy (after España, Spain)

Pásame la botella
.—“Pass me the bottle.”

pila ho’okani
—instrumental music

po
—grandmother

sammosa
—forgetfulness; loss of awareness

sangha
—the sacred community that lives in peace and harmony

Say Yup
—language spoken in Four Districts, Guangzhou

seh doc
—to bear; to afford; to be able to withstand

sing dawn fai lock
—“Happy New Year” in Chinese (literally: holy birthday happiness joy)

sipapu
—a small hole in the floor of the kiva symbolizing the portal through which the ancestors came

su doc
—think virtue

suey yeah
—midnight snack

sun
—morning, body, believe, letter

tet nguyen dâ
—“Happy New Year” in Vietnamese (literally: feast of the first morning)

thala
—ultimate star

ting
—pavilion, sacred vessel, stop, listen

walk mountain
—pay respects to the dead

waw; wei
—interjections like “wow”

wu wei
—non-doing

Contentment and well-being at once become possible the moment you cease to act with them in view, and if you practice non-doing (
wu wei
), you will have both happiness and well-being.

—
THOMAS MERTON

Xizang
—Tibet

zaijian
—
au revoir, auf Wiedersehen

Many thanks to the authors of the following sources, which are excerpted or referred to in the text:

Irving Berlin, “Sittin’ in the Sun (Countin’ My Money).”

Dalai Lama,
How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships
, translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, Atria Books, 2006.

Gilgamesh
, translated by David Ferry, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992.

Omar Khayyam,
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1858.

Thomas Merton,
The Way of Chuang Tzu
, New Directions, 1965.

John Mulligan,
Shopping Cart Soldiers
, Curbstone Press, 1997.

Rumi, “Songs of the Reed,”
The Essential Rumi
, translated by Coleman Barks, Castle Books, 1997.

Maghiel van Crevel,
Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem, and Money
, Brill Academic Publishers, 2008.

Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass
, Sherman and Co., Philadelphia, 1900.

Yang Lian, “Poets and Poems in Exile: On Yang Lian, Wang Jiaxin, and Bei Dao,” translated by Maghiel van Crevel.

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
China Men
Hawai‘i One Summer
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book
To Be the Poet
The Fifth Book of Peace

As Editor:
The Literature of California: Native American Beginnings to 1945
Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace