Rewriting Stella
Page 21
The night outside tried darkening each min
and lost against the powered city lights.
This urban nexus Stel found self within
itself was geared to strip and disunite
its residents from natures, Nature, Earth,
so threatening one’s compass of self-worth.
278.
Ai came back in and Stella snapped from trance,
recalling their last walk in Wangjiang Park.
Ai needed only briefest fleeting glance
to see that Stel was feeling rather dark.
Ai couldn’t help or handle, left the room,
itself an act that left Stel bleeding more
until a minute later she saw whom
Ai’d gone to fetch as wiser, old mentor:
her mother came in, sitting down beside
her and her BLING on floor, and put her hand
in tenderness on Stella’s head. She spied
the telltale signs of loneliness there spanned.
No inquiry on how Stel’d been depressed,
the mom began to tell of how US
279.
had shaped her early views, had been her home.
“Dad shipped to San Francisco in an age
of rapid change, an era polychrome
in US history. There burned outrage
pre-Summer Love, in 1968.
Young folks had flooded west to occupy
the neighborhood where Ashbury and Haight
met; dad said seemed like everyone was high,
the place was looked down on as youth’s excess.
I later learned it was prime time; chicks rose
together naturally so to progress
toward tiny slice of rights. How? They exposed
the world to inner, private selves they’d hid
and tried stuff parents wanted to forbid.
280.
I’ll skip the gory details, but those terms
‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’, we’ll say suffice.
By twelve I heard these artists who confirmed
that somehow we’d been hiding paradise
inside, our truth left unexpressed. Once I
heard Janis Joplin say, after they see
me, when their mothers feed them all that lie
of cashmere sweaters, girdles, just maybe
they’ll have a second thought, that they can be
themselves and win, or something close to that.
Folks missed our Chinese ‘home’ relentlessly
but, born there, I felt me in habitat
that welcomed people simply ’cause they were
themselves, too, people. What was popular
281.
was being more yourself. It made sense in
my head and when I listened to those tracks,
but making real-life friends had really been
impossible because English syntax,
pronunciation, grammar, and accent
are hard—I only later pieced background
together ’bout what those zeitgeist cracks meant.
To live in multifamily home compounds
the challenges because you always speak
your native tongue. I learned so slowly. I
was living times of cultural mystique
as voiceless fringe observer on standby.
I was too timid, young. Where’d I fit? Gee,
nobody tells you how society
282.
should be approached as outsider. Myth you
will melt in melting pot’s convenient crap.
No clear way in, I balked and I withdrew.
That’s reason why we signed to host a chap
or lass, a foil for Ai from far away:
I grew from when life forced me to define
who I was separate from the noisy fray
and want to offer others so inclined
the chance when young to do the same. You’re there.
You’ve fallen off the highs new places give,
you’re questioning yourself, hyperaware
of all these differences in how you live
when thrown into the unfamiliar. Well,
don’t compromise yourself, my little Stel,
283.
’cause Joplin says you’re all you’ve got.” She paused
her consolation, drew in lengthy breath,
and looked how Stel’s face crinkled, pinched lines crossed
on eyes closed tight, as if to stay the death
of little voice that thought she’d stay a kid
somehow through thick and thin of drawn-out years.
Sad silent sensed sepulture slowly slid
child’s spirit ’neath the earthen biosphere,
to grave where personality’s rejects
accumulate in boneyard pile. Host loathed
to feel partition’s pain from vivisect-
ing psyche, molting needed for her growth.
We shed to pyre defunct intangible,
in pain whose need cannot itself then dull.
284.
With dampened cheeks, one Stella’s head raised just
enough to vocalize selected phrase
while staying low enough to hide her fussed
frown countenance rubbed salty with malaise.
“What changed?” she asked with softness, reaching for
the threads of hope that psyches tightly cling
to as their trusted future guarantor
that something better time shall this way bring.
“I found a couple people not unlike
me, those who liked what revolution meant
but never looked for center stage or mic,
that era’s silent ninety-nine percent,
the ones who felt the cause as strongly but
lacked ways to join the larger syndicate.
285.
By day I went to school, then after hung
with friends before my uncle got home, talked
about freewheeling liberal yardsticks flung
at us by radio. By nightlight, gawked
at literature less racy, stuff to ground
rebellious days in commonality,
like that serenity when we astound
ourselves with nature in totality.
Duality, I think, kept me afloat:
I found enough community in folks
around me, then could crawl into remote
redoubt in mind where no one’s voice could coax
me into thinking anything but what
I thought myself. My body had to shut
286.
them off each day for some amount of time.
That’s when I started reading namesake, Xue—”
“Wait, namesake? Your name’s Xue Tao too?” Stel chimed
in, interrupting. “Partly. Well, halfway:
they couldn’t change my family name, but first
or given name was up for grabs, so ‘Tao’.
So anyway, I found I was immersed
when reading what she wrote, and seeing how
she picked out tiny things and magnified
their relevance to larger life. Escape
is necessary. If the countryside
is too far in reality, then shape
it in your mind and spend time there at play.”
Tao did not see if her story’d allayed
287.
the downness Stella felt. Words sometimes take
a time to percolate past hardships. That
duration’s unpredictably opaque.
One hoped her redirection could get at
the quickest way to move on: alter aim.
The mother Tao delivered wisdom thus:
allow Abu his quest’s default goal (fame),
but don’t be dragged into his ego’s fuss.
Five years in flux for Stel would pass before
she’d master it. But seeds were plan
ted, so
sewn into soil for sprouting far offshore,
and years from then just north of Mexico
would germinate and grow. But let’s not zoom
too far till Volume Three’s tale is exhumed.
288.
The memories pockmarking young teenage stage
that anchored its significance to Stel
predominantly came before this page.
Remaining months unfolded parallel
in daily repeat action mirroring
the schedule that the schoolkids had to date.
In retrospect, first months were dearer thing
than staid routine that followed. Naught elates
quite like experiencing firsts of sense:
from touch, taste, timbre, tone, tradition, tongue
come neuron fireworks that light immense,
expansive mental caverns dark when young.
Caves luminesce as we senesce, but lose
flash-bangs originalities suffuse.
289.
Attentive readers might predict Abu
would further build his mental citadel
so to remediate chance will’s askew
of his ambition’s dictates. Grit’ll quell
the staunchest mental dissonance, and he
had pride and culture backing up that pluck.
Indeed, that grit made glue constructively
to bond his cinder castle. He felt luck
had fatefully delivered chance to rise
beyond low berth of birth, and duty now
was to deny distracting worldly ties
to study till his technical know-how
would cobble ladder stretching over walls
that being born in poverty installs.
290.
In rounding out the cast, the least was known
about the way that Ai’d push China, or
the way that China’d pull her. Fates had blown
sweet-smelling change – or hint thereof – before,
at least to mother. Would Ai also lift
beyond the Party fence? Some things condemned
deserved retrial, not ongoing short shrift,
like equalizing women country’d penned
into subservience by custom. Where
would badass women fit in China’s mold
of gender once the pathbreakers declare
the obsolescence of how males controlled?
These hints of thoughts were tiny seeds today
with mother’s tending blossoming someday.
291.
The rapeseed, rice, and peanut fields of Fan
remained free of deluge, at least while Jiang
held seat as Party Chairman. Other plans
would be drawn up to keep production strong
across the province. Hydro’s human cost
of yet another million displaced, old,
and blameless lifetime farmers would have crossed
the moral line. Perhaps, as deaths are tolled
and rural demographics shift, the math
could look much more attractive, decade hence.
At least for now, however, elders’ path
to tenure would require no self-defense.
As Ai predicted, honoring the past
alongside present built a world to last.
EPILOGUE
I bypassed ping-pong, karaoke, phones,
smoked sceney cigarettes, and net cafés,
for no one arc could more than draw the bones
of frantic Chinese change then underway.
Ai strived like Tao to be gen’s unicorn,
covert in power she’d play as untamed shrew.
Deep change included me, as I was torn:
be true self more as Stel, or as Abu?
We spent five years of walking tightrope line,
me showing him the world, him gripping fears
low grades would cause his scholarship’s decline,
support withdrawn then sinking Pioneers.
The pressure waves gave him delirium;
I’d try restoring equilibrium.
Half decade chained to desk’s lost time to live.
That’s maybe hypocritical from me.
I learned from him the aid that structure gives,
from daily dedication to studies.
Abu was brilliant at conformity:
school offered ladders up, like Ai believed.
Mold self into whatever form need be
to climb them? Fine. Just work. Now more. Achieve!
Obeying sickened me as years amassed,
yet never seemed to shake his deep-held faith
grades righted status, led to fortunes vast.
He ’llowed himself be haunted by that wraith.
New tools, hard times showed novel path to power
as I’d find life in adulation’s shower.
VOLUME THREE
PROLOGUE
I’ve written this, and feel I sit atop
a secret, an admission owed to you.
You ever feel your past is but a prop,
a cutout crafted to disown past rue?
Solidity of character at stake,
I feel compelled to clarify how I
myself discovered young Abu’s namesake
so we can trust each other eye-to-eye.
Craved to be Superwoman, Mister Scrooge,
alive with power of strength or power of cash,
attuned to information subterfuge,
I twisted truths with hashtags, mished and mashed.
By end of tome, I hope that you see me
chalk-drop once blackboard’s proof reads QED.
CHAPTER 15
1.
America, America the great!
The jewel! The shining cities on its hills!
Its ports where eager, huddled masses wait
to have their immigration dreams fulfilled
were elevated literarily
from Ellis Island out to Galveston,
these junctions where the traveled wearily
were processed toward their futures: gal, sis, son,
guy, bro, and daughter, generations tied
by universal freedom sapien hope.
But legacy of welcome nationwide
that day was overturned by misanthrope.
The entry lines for refugees stood still
by madd’ning stroke of Boy’s base-blessing quill.
2.
The protests galvanized support across
a nation wide in differences. They spanned
full spectrum’s ideology. The laws
allowing refugees from Muslim lands
were well-established by both precedent
and joint agreements in the Global North.
So unilateral stay’s circumvent
caused indignation then to bubble forth.
Beyond the confines kept by TSA
these folks from every walk of life converged
with signs BUT SUDANESE ARE DOPE!; BLESS THEY
WHO’VE SUFFERED; FREEDOM’S NOT RELIGIOUS PURGE;
and hundred more expressing love for kin –
however distant – seeking their way in.
3.
Amid that clamor they touched down, naïve
to shock that hit the landed world mid-flight.
Youth taxied, shuffled out, and were received
by immigration battery. Nonwhites
were separated out to special line
without an explanation to the crowds
arriving, joyful refugees combined
with citizens and tourists. Rights allowed
them when they’d boarded plane half-day before
mercurially changed: resettlement
was cloud-high hope on boarding, once ashore
their glass-shard dreams were shattered. “Rebels sent
to harm us,” propaganda presses pressed,
and so they tu
rned guests’ welcomes to arrests.
4.
The ban how it was written was quite clear:
rescinded visa if you came from X.
The country set was bluntly engineered
so sample from their populace reflects
a hundred het’rogeneous backgrounds,
a host of histories and dialects,
with single commonality pack’s bounds:
each mostly Muslim, crossing every sect.
Stel’s life was changed when Syria on list
of countries banned meant Abu’d be detained.
They’d spent since childhood nearly bound at wrist
yet she’d be free and he’d stay there enchained.
Pushed off to different lines for processing,
Ab was lost in Boy’s pand’ring law messing.
5.
As citizen of elsewhere, Stel could pass
through entry gate that stopped Abu. His dual-
held citizenship meant he’d be harassed
despite its extra richness as a fuel
for culture’s melting pots. Stel got her bags,
emerged to crowds of colors Benetton,
diversity she’d not seen outside mags.
Most all held protest signs, from tenets on
acceptance, love, and shit that Jesus said,
all tidal props that flooded her whole view
voiced neighborly respect to Muhammad.
Meanwhile concealed by crowds, suits countersued
and fought for rights on laptops, slinging suits
to stay the staying system at its roots.
6.
Not understanding those dynamics, I’d
not linger, jeopardize ability
to live here. Ab’s been misidentified
by heritage, he’ll get mobility
and join me in the homestay soon, Stel thought.
They’d faced much greater struggles times ago,
this was misunderstanding overwrought
like streaking satellite dubbed UFO.
She left the airport ’cause she’d confidence
they’d reunite in barely time at all,
with help from Hill or Pentagon. Hid prince
not that night, nor the many after, called.
From moment Stella stepped on US soil
it tore part self from hip, left seething boil.
7.
Frenetics of arrival overwhelmed,
Stel didn’t grasp in full the consequence
of what was rotting into grosser realm
around her, as lies trumped mere common sense.
Events of import that historians
craft out of static flowing headline tales
don’t offer victims solace. Boy’s deed stunned
public to apoplectic. Life unveils
significance of tragedy with time
in textbooks generations later read