Twelve Years of Hares Running (Mulan)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
The loom stopped
and the stopping was the first weapon

She heard her father's name
on twelve scrolls of conscription
and her father's legs
could no longer carry his name
to the place where names
become casualties

So she bought the saddle
at the east market
the bridle at the west
the whip at the south
and at the north market
she bought the thing
no market sells —
the decision
to become her father's son
for as long as the war
required a son

[Chorus]
Twelve years
the hare ran beside the hare
and no one could tell
which was the doe
and which was the buck
because running
has no gender
and neither does
the arrow
or the wound
or the campfire
where the soldiers sleep
in rows
and the one in the third row
braids her hair
only after
the tent flap closes

[Verse 2]
She crossed the Yellow River
at the place where the water
argues with itself
and rode until the war horses
of the northern barbarians
were audible
in the frequencies
the amygdala catalogs
as mortal

Ten thousand li
on a body
the army didn't audit
because the armor
covered everything
the empire
thought it needed to see
and what the empire needed to see
was a sword arm
and the sword arm
delivered

[Pre-Chorus]
The Khan offered twelve ranks
of official merit
She asked for a camel
that could cross a thousand li
Some versions say a horse
All versions say
she asked for the road
and not the title

[Chorus]
Twelve years
the hare ran beside the hare
and when the running stopped
she walked into her eastern room
and changed into her old-time dress
and fixed her cloudlike hair
beside the window
and painted her face
in the yellow of the mirror
and walked out
to the men who had marched beside her
through a decade
of identical mornings
and the men
looked at the magnolia
and the magnolia
looked back
and the looking
was the reveal
and the reveal
was a proverb
about feet

[Bridge]
The ballad says:
the male hare hops and skips
the female hare has misty eyes
but when two hares run side by side
who can tell if I am he or she

That is the oldest thing
I know about gender —
it was written in the fifth century
by someone
who watched a woman
put the loom back together
after twelve years
of not weaving
and the not-weaving
was the bravest weaving
she ever did

The shuttle became a sword
and the sword became a shuttle
and the loom
waited

[Final Chorus]
Twelve years
the hare ran beside the hare
and the magnolia rode home
on the animal she asked for
instead of a ministry
because the magnolia
understood
what the empire never will:
that the ride home
is the only rank
worth holding

And the loom is still waiting
in every country
where a father's name
appears on a scroll
and the daughter
hears the stopping
of a shuttle
that only she
knows how to start again

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