Changming (Michael) Yuan tells me that he might have trouble at the border crossing from Canada tomorrow to get down here for the reading at Hugo House. If he can't show up, what should I do? I could handle it all by myself. I could have the audience (the open mic people) read from the Chinese poetry books (in English translation) that I have.
What should a prince do when his nation is overrun by brigands? The Tao Te Ching tells him to meditate on plum blossoms. Here is a way to relieve stress. Here is a way to calm down one's mind. When the world is more than one mind, out of the ordinary things happen and we do not know reality as readily as before.
"At the edge of precision," said one ancient Chinese philosopher, "the universe quavers."
I see this as one step in my goal as a literary theorist. I am after all a part of the Chinese Diaspora. I am an existential instantiation of the said Chinese poetic diaspora.
I hope they at the US side of the Canadian border let Michael through.
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