words

cultural evolution

suzhou sabbatical:

charlick in china

How small is the world? Three Clevelanders in Suzhou? At the same University?

Bob Charlick is chairman of the Political Science Department at Cleveland State University and ..... my next door neighbor here at Suzhou University! On sabbatical, he has accompanied his wife Judy Charlick to Suzhou. While Judy, who heads the EFL Program at Cleveland State, is busy serving as a foreign expert with me in the Foreign Language School at Suzhou University, Bob spends his days wandering around Suzhou, giving occasional guest lectures around town and in Shanghai, ignoring the pleas of vendors and sanlunche drivers, and putting fingers to keyboard to turn out some excellent musings on life in China and elsewhere. Suzhou has served as Muse for Chinese poets through the ages. Here Bob muses on topics near and far.

Suzhou Spring

Two thousand five hundred times shoots peek up awakening the earth with tingling wispy fingers
forged in the cauldron of Gung fu.
Wu’s watery citadel adorns again its
willows, plums and cherries with muted pallets.
Rain’s persistent chill stills even the hammer
tearing at ancient clay
Gardens of exquisite design
engage the more subtle senses
even in the din of those who follow the flag.

So little to recall that barely 30 shoot renewals
separate this malodorous heaven
from the playground for the crimson brats
their lesson barely learned.
Growth fertilized by madmen’s soil
unchecked even by nature’s rules and reason
destroys the treasures and vices of the past,
bringing nothing even to season the
brow of those who thought a little wildness
could serve their ends.

In paradise green triumphs yet again,
obscuring, for now, our view of its price tag.

- Bob Charlick (March 29, 1999)

Dayennu*

After a winter of Lake Erie gales
riding high on her wooden bed
she slipped one day
girdled by her girth
into her murky home.

Her engine turned
daunted little by its long and lazy sleep,
and only slightly sluggish from oxygen's ravages
Her crew was virgin, scantily experienced in her quirky ways
Still, she guided seemingly safe
toward her nearby harbor berth.

In distant China we trod Lion Grove's paths,
the forest of stone reminded us that lakes have bottoms.
In this universe of quantums, perhaps lake bottoms commiserate
when we pull their jagged teeth
to puzzle us in pitted labyrinths.

We navigate the stony maze, benign we believe,
losing sight of our objective only for moments.
Escape at will and enjoy still
the momentary threat that ancient lake stones echo.

What minor flaw made her vulnerable?
What blood and stone debt did she have to pay?
To rock and roll
out of control
to her destiny with Taihu's brothers.

- Bob Charlick (May 30, 1999)

*Note: Back in Cleveland, Bob and Judy have a sail boat named Dayennu, which in Hebrew means "this in itself is enough." While in Suzhou this spring and summer, they entrusted their boat to friends back in Cleveland. The day they went to Lion's Grove Garden here in Suzhou, they returned to their apartment to learn that the sailboat had sunk in Cleveland's Lake Erie. Lion's Grove is most famous for it's huge stone sculptures, the stones for which are dredged up from the local lake here, Lake Tai (Taihu). Too, on the shores of Cleveland's Lake Erie sits the world famous Rock and Roll Musuem designed by the world-renowned I.M. Pei (Bei Yi Ming) who, it just so happens, was born and raised in.....you guessed it, Suzhou.
(Accompanying photo copyright © 1999 Robert Charlick)

Easy

Killing is easy
It is always for a cause.
Just causes justify the price, victors say;
the hundreds of thousands of their/our children pay
when "we" decide they must.

In Ming China 400,000 perished in a single week
to make the Manchus right.
Ten million (or was it more?)
slaughtered in Taiping's "Holy War"
against the former barbarian rulers
And then "modern" Japan taught the world
what brutality was all about
as in Nanjing 300,000 fell to their just cause.
The Chairman, not to be outdone, killed untold millions
more slowly, but just as surely, as China leaped backward.
Six million more went to their smoky end
in the heart of Teutonic rationalism
Two flashes repaid our children in Japan
for their fathers' and mothers' justice.

In Belgrade bombs fall,
accidents happen
legitimate military targets
people die.

It is so easy when you're right.

- Bob Charlick (May 30, 1999)
 photo copyright © 1999 Reuters

Mount Tai (Taishan)

Taishan rises like human desire
What could men want in scaling those endless steps?

Beauty so omnipotent that
even the numb succumb,
Rain falling on its green pines.
Plastic robed like fresh wrapped monks,
the pilgrim/tourists test their mettle
against this ageless stele

Wisdom abounds with each step up,
the rocks bear witness to our need to know
and leave our mark

Taishan's call is bigger still.
We climb to defy entropy.
Health, riches and peace all counter
nature's slow erosion.

Don't ask the mountain, then, for peace
it stands aloof
offering nothing but the foil and stage
upon which we can play
our piece of visions and dreams.

- Bob Charlick (October 11, 1999)

Notes:

Tai shan (Mount Tai), in Shangdong Province, is one of China's four holy mountains,
The entire climb is up 5500 stairs
The way is covered with writings by scholars and ordinary folk
One anonymous scholar wrote in 1937..a poem which starts with:

 "Don't ask the Mountain to bring peace to the World."

Tiantan

On a sweltering day
we trod Tiantan's path to heaven.

Straight and true,
geometric, reserve.
Only the divine dared walk those central stones.

On the temple facade
dragons whip and phoenixes dance.
Wild and orderly
the energy leaps.
Strange, these men of ultimate power
needed to honor the female force.

Red, gold, azure
massive wooden beams
proved impotent to stem the rising tide.
Two thousand years of tyranny collapsed
to Mao's red youth.
Like the Emperors they proclaimed
"The way to heaven (on earth) is through
Right Thought."
"Women hold up half the sky."

Dragons still whip and phoenixes dance in Mao's heaven.
But which half of place and honor and reward
do women reap?

And the Great Wheel turns,
drawing to it untold millions.
Wheelwrights languish in public hells
for their work.

The central path is still reserved
for those few who rank and still pretend to believe.

- Bob Charlick (October 6, 1999)

Bob can be reached at:

r.charlick@csuohio.edu