Read Online A Year at River Mountain by Michael Kenyon - Free Book Online Page A

engendered. I felt such pity for the broom, which I remembered as a new thing with fresh stalks of young bamboo, green and flexible, tied with red twine to a straight smooth yellow wood handle. I was given it shortly after my arrival, and we have been together these long years and cleared the paths season after season and have grown old together. My fingers oiled the shaft each fall. The bristles were thinning, but still.
    I have searched the forest and the ground beneath each tree. Someone has taken the broom while I was away. Zhou Yiyuan has returned already and taken it, perhaps, because it is mine. Now I’m afraid of losing everything, as he said I would.
    All I’ve collected since the foundation of the world. Things I hid since God was a boy. Things I’ve forgotten. All reformations.
    Brooms, of course. House brooms, outside brooms.
    A BUNDANT B ULGE
    Two gunshots from the forest to the west. These, together with bits of news filtering in from the outside world, make Zhou Yiyuan’s prophecy believable. Sunshine on wet unmown field grass, webs woven by night heavy with dew — all fragile, on their way out. The dew almost frost.
    Chosn detonated an atomic bomb in a cave. The princely stag that passed me going west an hour ago may be already dead. The repair crew seems agitated as Zhou Yiyuan strides from the frantic encampment to the bridge and back. He’s preparing his people to move on, to finish or give up on the bridge. We hear they are under threat from another tribe.
    To the southwest a dog has been barking since I began writing ten minutes ago. The gunshots and the dog are probably related. Sunlight fixes the great chestnut to its massive crown of exposed roots. The trunk towers over the roof of the shrine and the ground is littered with shiny nuts and split green casings. I hear steps in the leaves.
    S TREAM D IVIDE
    Yesterday Zhou Yiyuan brought a sealed message from his sister, placed it on the ground, bowed, then stepped from the shrine back into the shadow of the tree.
    Will you claim the child?
    A channel opens between their village and the monastery, actions from my past waiting to erupt, but to what purpose? What chance would my old sperm have against that of the rampaging boys and men?
    This morning there was a small earthquake. Then I found my broom on the ground: I had left it in a tree, between two sets of forked branches.
    R USHING Y ANG
    The master summoned me to his hut near the wishing tree. He was sitting in the courtyard on a red carpet amid fallen leaves and held the black box. We gazed at each other and listened to the birds.
    â€œAn earthquake shook the temple,” he said. “Was that you?”
    â€œNo, Master.”
    â€œI am not that for you.”
    â€œI would like to stay here,” I said.
    He cocked his head to one side. “Before going to the cities, I want the three of you to carry an offering over the mountain. Fill your bags with the best fruit and grains and the finest honey and take them to North Valley.”
    We left at midnight and travelled by half-moon along the dry path where our sweat froze along Du Mai and our arms ached.
    At dawn we stopped to eat some of the fruit, my idea, and then continued our climb. Bamboo gave way to pines, dark and velvet, night flickering beneath their branches even at midday.
    My two companions slept in a circle of massive rocks. I was too cold and tired to understand the meaning of this task or of any dreams or thoughts or words, but I still unfolded the little desk. My child is in the past not the future. I can’t think what I’m supposed to learn from Zhou Yiyuan, nor from the master who keeps sending me away. My limbs ache and my sinuses are clogged. I’m colder than I’ve ever been. This place is lost in white fog, the setting sun a great yellow primitive eye.
    Was the central pavilion of my life a theatre, a shrine, or a forest hut? I remember the night my wife gave birth to our child.