"What about, Sing Lee?"
A faint smile. The smile seems to set Sing Lee in motion. It comes from
behind the automaton. It is perhaps Sing Lee's first gesture of life in
weeks.
"You don't mind my sitting here and smoking a pipe, eh?"
* * * * *
The minutes pass. Sing Lee stands up. He turns on a small electric light.
This is a concession. This done, he opens a drawer behind the counter and
removes a little bronze casket. The casket is placed on the counter.
Slowly as if in a deep dream Sing Lee lights a match and holds it inside
the casket. A thin spiral of lavender smoke unwinds from its mouth.
Sing Lee watches the spiral of smoke. It wavers and unwinds. A finger
writing; an idiot flower. Then it opens up into a large smoke eye. Smoke
eyes drift casually away. An odor crawls into the air. Sing Lee's eyes
close gently and his thin body moves as he takes a deep breath.
His eyes still closed, Sing Lee speaks.
"You writer?" he murmurs.
"Yes."
"I too," says Sing Lee. "I write poem."
"Yes? When did you do that?"
"Oh, long ago. Mebbe year. Mebbe five years."
Sing Lee reaches into the open drawer and takes out a large sheet of rice
paper. It is partly covered with Chinese letters up and down.
"I read you in English," says Sing Lee. His eyes remain almost shut. He
reads:
The sky is young blue.
Many fields wait.
Many people look at young blue sky.
Old people look at young blue sky.
Many birds fly.
At night moon comes and young blue sky is old.
Many young people look at old sky.
"Did you write that about Chicago, Sing Lee?"
"No, no," says Sing Lee. His eyes open. The smoke eyes from the incense
pot drift like miniature ghost clouds behind him and creep along the rows
of yellow laundry packages.
"No, no," says Sing Lee. "I write that about Canton. I born in Canton many
years ago. Many, many years ago."