738 mph

Ha Jin. Decorated Chinese-American writer invited by Cleveland's public library to read his work. He chooses a short story about a composer's devotion to a mute parrot. The library's air, stagnant. The author's accent, heavy as my narcoleptic lids. I'm impressed by the holding power of the man's non-theatric presentation. Easily two hundred Clevelanders belie the culture's inclination toward glitz. This crowd could be just as happy in our own recliners, hammocks, porch swings -- surveilling the writer's words incognito. But here we all are, literature groupies, entranced.

I scribble some words that don't make sense now, two days later. 'Affectionate without being soft. Sorrowful without anger.' Ha Jin might have used these words to describe his protagonist. They fit the writer perfectly, too. A man without guile or affectation.

After the reading, he answers questions. He would not recommend to anyone to be a writer. Friday's newspaper quoted him on the physical demands of writing the novel:

Just to carry the book around in you is exhausting. A good part of your mind must be devoted to it.

So we circle around like the story's laconic parrot to the question of devotion. A young man asks Ha Jin if he writes for his audience or for himself. The writer says an ideal audience is neither a group (too fickle) nor yourself (too partial?). Find one person you respect and devote your writing to this audience of one.

I accept the golden kernels from the master's hand. He's earned my trust several books ago. I think about the yackety parrots of this world, each with her own glib affront to stillness. I wonder about the decorated Chinese American author and his solitary audience. I consider the burden of carrying around your book, your composition, your painting for the sake of one winged miracle of receptivity.

I listen to Ha Jin and marvel at the velocity of silence.