JAMI
PROCTOR XU
Kali ~ Kathamndu
1
your name appears for weeks in the signature line
of all her letters name
auto-corrected to become you
2 3 4
Kali, coming again, why are you coming again
timedestroyerhealerprotectormother
fire on the tongue divine
divine
Om Klim Kalika Yei Namaha
the fire within rises as the plane lifts
from the Chengdu greens of the trees and
the Jin River
into
the turbulent fog until the sky opens
blue into the Himalayas 喜马拉雅 Ximalaya
veined
in browns the twisting rivers one begins
a translucent turquoise before taking on yellow-brown
silttheyellow that becomes its namesake
below this flight path
just south of highlands, deserts, and riverbanks where she has been
on
the ground and in this same sky the
lotus hand healing
Denis telling her these mountain formations make you feel
as if you are seeing the divine mind itself all its jagged formations
sandstone singing a poet's square the sacred lake not far north
of here
if you stick your tongue out far enough into
into the sky you'll taste its salt
and feel, again, yak hair between your
fingers, soft, as you pet the white yak
whose owner tells you it feeds the whole
family with the money made
from photographs at the lakeside a single yak hair in the mind draws a line
as you cross the unseen border sandstone trees roads rivers thousands
upon millions of years enter each breath
grown purer as you reenter
clouds and a sudden expanse of snow on
Sagarmatha if you reach your hand
out far enough you'll touch its snow with
your fingertips, just as the stars have
to feel the texture of the lives and deaths
of those who've ascended and gazed out
you rest your forehead against the cold
window all lives enter as
the third eye breathes in the
descent back into browns greens streets and paths
2
on the bus from the plane to the terminal
on the tarmac in Kathmandu
a Nepali woman looks exactly like Anne but
with darker skin
beautiful how that happens black
hair flowing wild in the wind
divine feminine energy
She devours Time. Naked Time.
Naked Kali.
She is an open system. She eats
energy and manifests energy.
No concept need apply. She is the
flickering tongue of Agni.
fire. She is the mother of language and
mantra... *
Kali calling again appearing and
reappearing in language as language
as my name as my friend whose face is on
another woman she is this woman
she is every woman protector destroyer
healer time hibiscus in the mind
3
remember the thirty-three year old woman
wearing a gray t-shirt that read:
stay
wild, prove you exist
remember her burning holes in desk drawers
to make space for sunflowers
to bloom inside to be seen
remember her carrying her teacher's burned
body to the riverbanks, scooping mud
to
soothe the burns and scars
remember her sitting still while eight
artists sketched her face, saying:
let
yourself be held here
in Kathmandu, she walks barefoot in the
rain among fallen flowers
4
Jacaranda
the wind whistles a purple
flower
to become her name Lucie says she loves
the name in
Chinese as well 蓝花楹 Lanhuaying
a pillar full flowering,
shedding
as she stands at her aunt's bedside
the doctor asks Do you know who this is
and her aunt says Bertie the nickname of her own aunt
not the name of her niece standing at her
bedside
elevated calcium induced delirium makes her
aunt forget even her own name
as the nurses bathe her aunt she chants the Gayatri mantra so the sound
can hold her in her fears and the excruciating
pain in her hip broken and replaced
she feels her grandmother holding her
aunt's hand as she holds her hand
and her aunt asks Am I going to die?
No
she says they say you are going
to be okay
just as the doctor repeats again three days
before she dies
He says
Your aunt will likely live another ten years
She's quite a person he says
Yes
she says She taught first and
second grade for over thirty years
in one tree a whole spring of flowers
in one flower the name of a whole tree
in three days she becomes her aunt's
mother,
aunt, niece, daughter, sister
in her aunt's face every stage of her life
this scattering of purple all along
the wet gray pavement in this sister city
of Chengdu
5
moon showing us the path the students write
in their group poem in a classroom at the
international school in Kathmandu
blue butterfly just outside the window flies into the poem
Do you like to sing, Madam the students ask after the poetry workshop
ends
and they offer to sing her a Nepali folk
song
a chorus of girls' voices fills the room
a silk thread flying in the sky
the principal enters the room and starts dancing
his arms the wings of a bird
in this city once sometimes called Kantipur
City of Light
moonlight showing us the path sunlight showing us the path
students
showing us the path
6
On the banks of the Bagmati River she stands
watching monkeys
dive into the water climb stone steps swing from wires
inhaling smoke from the cremation pyres
exhaling prayers for the dead and the living
Come, Mam, I want to bless you a woman says
I don't have any money, she says to the
woman, I'm sorry
Come, Mam, the woman says again I want to bless you
I just came from teaching poetry at a
school, she says,
and I don't have any money on me otherwise I would
I don't want money, the woman says I just want to bless you
Come
Come the woman motions
again so she walks over
the woman blesses her
with
holy water a red tilaka red and yellow kalava thread
the woman chants and she lets herself open and relax all the way
to be held in the woman's voice
healerprotector love
of the divine mother in the woman's
voice
Thank you, she says to the woman once the
blessing is complete
a wave of peace passes through her body
I'm sorry I don't have any money, she says
again
and the woman repeats, I don't want your
money
I just wanted to bless you
I'll write you a poem, she tells the woman
in the smoky sunlight on the banks of the Bagmati River
7
on the stone steps she watches from across
the river
as family members wash the faces and feet
of their loved ones
in preparation for cremation so many loved ones living and dead
each individual fire all the fires this shared ash
she thinks of her step-daughter, her aunts,
her father-in-law,
her grandmothers and grandfathers when they
were
washed in preparation for cremation or
burial
prayers in four languages, two continents and the present
as the living hold the dead the dead hold the living
on and on
she remembers carrying her teacher's burned
body
to the riverside to soothe the burns with
cool mud
trying to help her heal in a dream her beloved teacher
already having died in a fire lit with her
own hands
timedestroyerhealerprotectormother
8
Shreejana says Kali's love is powerful
She tells her bahini You are Kali
your name appears again
and all the false words of others fall away
all the misunderstandings fall away
all the aggressions and anger fall away
love appears
Look, there's another sun right below the
sun, D says
in
this sky, it is so
Om Klim Kalika Yei Namaha
*These
lines are from Anne Waldman's "Alphabet of Mother Language," from
The Iivos Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism
of Concealment.
Jami
Proctor Xu is an
award-winning bilingual poet and translator who writes in Chinese and English.
She has co-organized international poetry events in China, South Africa,
Eswatini, Lesotho, and Ethiopia and frequently reads at poetry festivals
worldwide.
Also Available on Amazon, Flipkart & Daraz
Amazon
USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DWSPT5WP
Amazon
India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0DWSPT5WP
Distributed
in the United States by Itasca Book Distribution: https://itascabooks.com/
Distributed in South Asia by Nirala Publications, India: https://niralapublications.com/product-category/pratik-series/ In Nepal by White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu:
https://whitelotusbookshop.com/product-category/pratik-series/
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