Tag Archives: Taoism

Chuang Tzu

Sometimes, life is simple, clean and pure lines
like the woodcuts in my edition of
Chuang Tzu; there is a sense of stillness that
permeates the busy scenes of action,

that slices right through the day’s busy-ness
and yet is un-noticed, like the soft pause
of the flute when the oboe’s line plays through;
in the epiphany of rest, the soul,

often against the mind’s better judgment,
finds the vast, empty spaces between breath,
where there are no ancestors or teachers,
no lessons or ways of becoming whole.

Now that you have finished up your dinner,
what remains is the washing of the plate.

06 JUL 2003

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On the Tao

The Tao that can be seen is not the Tao,
the obvious is never what it seems;
and often, what connects the who to how
is understood only by fools in dreams.

Still, once in a great while, a glimpse is seen
of balance, as it plays behind a cloud;
the light and dark and all points in between,
the word that vanishes if said aloud.

For only in the frame of the observed
Can our defining map much of the way;
And our illusions do naught but preserve
masks between it has been and come what may.

Both in our grasp and there beyond our reach,
The Tao embraces all, and defines each.

26 NOV 2002

for Pietro

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