TAO MAN

  

He stands

Within a forest scene

That bursts

With futile energy,

Which flourishes

And yet must die.

 

His triumph

Is a Poetry

Without a rhythm

Or a rhyme:

His body

Like a withered tree,

His mind

Like slaked lime.

 

I wander

Irresolutely,

Against the winds

Opposing me,

Yet wonder why

I cannot burn my seeds

And stand,

My branches breaking off,

While wind becomes

My winding sheet—

My sepulcher,

The earth and sky.

 

His Vision

Lacks the artistry

I strive to rein

With word-strung lines:

My vision fails,

While his remains

Within the depths

I cannot plumb,

Or mine:

His body

Like a withered tree,

His mind

Like slaked lime.

 

 

 

PAPER WORK

 

I looked at a tree.

It looked back at me!

I turned away,

Red-faced with shame:

For the woods looked

More real to me

On paper, and in memory,

Than in their green

Reality.

 

But wouldn’t I rather

Have joined in the laughter

The humorous breeze

Tickled out of a myriad

Fanciful leaves?

 

Alas! I would rather

Be back in my study,

Typing away—

The simulated

Wood-grain panels

Reflecting the myriad pages

Of my treatise

On Ecology!

 

FEBRUARY SECOND

 

 The ground hog that lives underneath our shed:

If he’d come out today, would he have seen

His shadow and slipped back to where he’d been

These past few months, snug in his home-made bed,

Digesting all the flora that has fed

His ravenous and constant foraging?

Or was the sun behind a cloud, passing

Just when he wriggled out his sleepy head?

Had we made time to see him, we would know;

But we were as preoccupied as he

When he was nibbling on our garden rows.

Our day was spent desiring shadows cast

Before us in the sunlight, while his sleep

Absorbed his appetite through winter’s fast.