The Long March

"People's Hero Grandpa Pu! May he live ten thousand years!"

I am 100 years old today. That represents, let me think… yes, one per cent of the lifespan these scrubbed and polished young pioneers wish me. One per cent. Imagine…
"People's hero Grandpa Pu! May we follow in his footsteps!"
My footsteps. They have been many. Many. I made the Long March! How foolish these songs! Where have we got to? Answer me that: Where are we now?

"More cake, Grandpa Pu?"

Cake. Ice cream. Look at those chubby-cheeked, shining faces! For this I trudged eight thousand kilometers? To sit on a dais at the Teddy Bear Restaurant while a teevee crew tapes my birthday party for a human interest segment on the Sichuan nightly news? Nine thousand nine hundred more years of this?

"People's hero Grandpa Pu! Your journey's just begun!"

No, children.

"Grandpa Pu? Grandpa Pu!"

I am not dead.

"Grandpa PU!"

I am not dying.

The children have stopped singing and there is a bit of a commotion. Very well. I am setting off on the Long March and am leaving my body behind for a bit. Let them eat the cake.

Crossing the river to the other shore, leaving the raft behind.

Yes, yes, the Diamond Sutra, but not in this case. They were firing at us from the heights.

It was the end of 1934 and my fellow Sichuanese Zhu De was still heading the Red Army. We were headed toward Sichuan, toward home.

"All these river hills and I don't go home to hills of my own…".

My fellow-townsman Su Dungpo wrote that over nine hundred years ago. Su, one of China's greatest poets, was born right here in Emeishan at the foot of our great mountain, nearly 3100 meters high.

Crossing the river and thinking of home as the shots and their echoes created a chaos of sound. The river was pulling us downstream, downstream toward the sea. There is screaming, shouting. Bullets whiz by like the proverbial angry hornets. I think of home and fresh persimmons, their creamy orange color, fresh ripened in Fall, there will be persimmons at home and chestnuts and guoba rupian, the crispy rice with pork and gravy served in all the market stalls. My clothes are soaked, soaked, and Li Er cries out because he is bleeding, his face is covered with blood and he goes over into the river and downstream, downstream toward the sea.

"Charting a course through the waves depends upon the skill of the helmsman. Making revolution depends upon the thought of Chairman Mao."

But that comes later, not there in the river, not with the shots and shouts.

"My home is where the river first bubbles from a fountain…".
Su again. I became a teacher because of Su. But I was in the river to follow Zhu.

The cliffs were steep but we scaled them, those few of us who survived the crossing. Those many who were still on the other bank ferried across the Wu, thanks to us. It was Zhu De himself who pinned the medal to my quilted coat and Zhou Enlai shook my hand. I had crossed the river and become People's Hero Pu.

We marched. Forward, forward, around and around, crossing rivers.

Rivers.

My province is named for them: "Four Rivers."

"My mind too is like this:… a river with no waves." Su again. Su from Shu, Su and Wu and Zhu from Shu, which is another name for Sichwan, of course. And all these names rhyme! People's Hero Grandpa Pu the Poet!

I have been many things, many people and now I am the oldest People's Hero, I have outlived them all! Then again, it means I am the next to die.

And so?

"Small boat, I'll take my leave
Pass the years remaining on distant seas."

Su in exile. The governor panicked! Thought Su had escaped his confinement! Even the emperor had heard the rumor! The power of poetry; the delusions of authority! Su was asleep in his bed, drifting on distant seas that no Red Guard could reach.

Mao's Hundred Flowers bloomed and like the Grim Reaper he cut them down.

People's Hero Pu kept his peace.

Later, when the Red Guards came, People's Hero Pu held his Little Red Book high. Mao himself had inscribed it, written me a poem:

"Ahead the Long March
Hunger and thirst our outriders
Sorrow's attack cannot soften our hearts
The world will hear our war cry!"

Taken from the Book of Songs and turned about.
Well, things change. Turn and turn about.

Mao is dead.

People's Hero Grandpa Pu lives!

The nurse has large breasts. They are pressing against me.
That scent…? Sweet, sweet. It is the Night Lady.

My eyes open. It is day.

What a commotion!

A Red Army platoon has been summoned!

It would be counter-revolutionary to die at my birthday party, I know, but surely they understand I am past caring?
The nurse's jasmine-scented perfume is cloying, but the gentle pressure of her breasts bothers me not at all. Some things don't change, perhaps!

I have not had a heart attack, not suffered a stroke. I was simply wandering.

Why have the soldiers come?

I, who thought surprises were a thing of the past, should have known better: What is life but a continual surprise?

****

Steep, steep is the path to the summit; at times it can seem endless.

The day is waning.

Such is the Long March.

I confess I will be glad to see sunset from the summit.
People's Hero Grandpa Pu may not see it again. Never did I dream I would be carried to do so, carried on the backs of soldiers of the Red Army of which I am a veteran. This is the way of what the people call the "cheaters," not the way of the true pilgrim, but it is beyond my power to change any of this. Personal power grows from the realization that the only power is the power of change.
Pilgrims trek to the summit once more. Pilgrims and tourists.
Today the tourists salute me as I pass, shaking their walking staffs with tiny, tinkling bells attached. The People's Republic has provided the bells as part of the homage to People's Hero Grandpa Pu. Ting-a-ling!
The monks have returned to the monasteries in recent years, though the temples remain a shadow of what they were before the Red Guard storm swept over these peaks only to be blown away by the winds of change.
It is windy today. But as one nears the summit, the winds are ever present, always stronger than down below in the world of the Red Dust.

Yes, yes, my children: People's Hero Grandpa Pu has long since "lapsed," returned to the faith of his fathers. People's Hero Grandpa Pu is a Buddhist!

We have left the Golden Summit behind and are making our way to the final peak: Ten Thousand Buddha Summit.
My bearer pauses to replenish his ch'i. Though I weigh little, thinner still is the air above three thousand meters. The cameraman too seems happy to pause. The paramedic sets down the oxygen tank. Yes, yes, they have thought of everything.

Or so they think.

"I will walk the last of this," I proclaim. "I will hear no argument."

The paramedic's eyes narrow. He takes his walkie-talkie from his belt and turns away. Mumble, mumble.

"I made the Long March," I shout.

So.

"People's Hero Grandpa Pu, will you please repeat for the camera? All China will be watching tonight!"

Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday!

What difference does it make?

"Alone," I state when I am on my own two feet again.
And so People's Hero Grandpa Pu resumes his Long March.
Sunset will be soon now. Beneath, the sea of clouds is reddening.

Rivers running to the sea.

I hold my head high, oblivious to the nattering of the cameraman alongside but slightly behind. I forbade him to precede me. My pilgrimage is nearing its end.

Good fortune is my companion now.

What can I say?

I reach the summit and -Lo!-all is as a dream.

Beneath me is the red sea of cloud. My tired eyes see my shadow in it! This can happen: it happens seldom, but it is happening now: the phenomenon known as the "Buddha's Aureole," the rainbow rings created in the River of the Sky, attaching themselves to my shadow.

So.

Once upon a time the devout dove into this river. Below, obstacles have been created to prevent this. No such obstacles exist here.

"Face the camera, People's Hero Grandpa Pu!"

In your dreams!

I take a last look at the clouds.

"Drifting clouds: the world shifts so;
One moon: thus the light of my mind."

Su in one of his last poems.

I lower my weary body to the ground. The temperature is dropping. The trees below are taking on a shadow form.
I raise my eyes from my own shadow, from the River of the Sky leading down to the Sea of Cloud. I look up into the River of the Air leading up into the Sea of the Infinite.

And-Lo!-I see my Way!

"Two rivers contest my departure;
Beyond treetops, a bridge angles away."

So ends that poem of Su's.

I swallow all the air of the sky.

Only one river. Only one.

"Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond. Enlightenment. So be it!"

That is from the Heart Sutra, children. Crossing to the other shore.

Exhaling the sky in a long sigh, People's Hero Grandpa Pu puts an end to the Long March.

Biography

Timothy J. Cullen (Electric Acorn # 8), a regular contributor to Lew Rockwell.com, lives in Spain. He also writes haiku (nearly 1,500) in English and Spanish.