What Is It That You Love?

詩 [Shi Poetry] = 言 [yan words] + 寺 [si temple]

1. 言 [words]

= 亠 [head/lid] + 二 [second] + 口 [mouth]

1. 1.1 亠 The Head That Is Also a Lid

2. 1.2 二 A Second Chance

3. 1.3 口 The Mouth Finds a Voice

2. 寺 [temple]

= 土 [earth] + 寸 [inches]

1. 2.1 土 The Earth of Writing

2. 2.2 寸 Becoming a Poet in Inches

亠 The Head That Is Also a Lid

I am picking up a book. This time it is a diary—my own. As I retrace the paths within the university I have left for another, the odd tree or wildflower easily sends me on a trip down the memory lane. I see a girl on her way to Accounting 101. She stops momentarily to catch her breath. A poem is emerging in her mind. A car roars past, shaking her out of her reverie. The smile on her face is replaced by a look of grim determination. She squares her shoulders and starts to run. As she turns the corner, my mind fast forwards to a later time. It is 7pm. I watch her leave the classroom surrounded by friends. Their chatter fails to excite her, and the dull throb in her head is getting worse. She closes her eyes. She tries to remember the poem that came to her earlier, but the words do not come.

Once again, I am picking up a book. I cannot bring myself to read it. It is only my third month at business school, yet the success of the market economy is a myth I cannot comprehend no matter how hard I try. There is pain—somewhere inside of me—that cannot be put into words. I look out into the darkness and recall something I learnt somewhere, years ago: And Winter’s dregs made desolate / the weakening eye of day. / The tangled binestems scored the sky / like strings of broken lyres … I am picking up another book. I read those words aloud, from the beginning: The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy. The poem finds the word that finds the feeling (Winterson 187). I read these words once more, because I am reminded of a German poet who said: you must change your life (Rilke 67).

I am picking up a book again. I am reading the Bible aloud in front of the entire school. The book feels heavy in my palm: a weight I have learnt to carry well. My voice echoes across the heads of a thousand girls. I have learnt to keep my face as blank as a clean slate. The same uniform for twelve years. A white skirt, blue collar, blue belt, blue hem. A dark, no-nonsense kind of blue. White the color of snowfall in Eden. I washed it every single day, made sure I ate in small bites, always wore an extra pad so none of the blood could seep through. I began wearing that uniform at age six, my skin haunted by the British flag, so I would be Chinese with English characteristics.

A book picks me up. I am sitting for my university entrance exams. We are reading Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and I feel a sudden, inexplicable urge to be Viola, who is pleading for Olivia’s love on Orsino’s behalf as Cesario. I detest Orsino—he is like a languid fly I long to swat away. I smile as I realize that Olivia is now smitten with Cesario. Who wouldn’t fall for such a beautiful … lady? Young man? For a moment, I am confused. Now I think I would like to be Orsino, since it is he whom Viola/Cesario loves. I go on reading. I am learning to ask unanswerable questions. It feels like a text’s strange will desires me. It’s up to me to receive, to be inhabited by this alterity (Robertson 26).

A book picks me up, once more. I am ten years old, having recently broken my right arm from breaking a friend’s fall off a swing. I have been using my cast as a paperweight. I am at a restaurant, and the adults are talking loudly about me as usual...