Tao Te Ching #60, Rattlesnake

Dark diamonds of flesh
taut and still, so still
waiting in heated anticipation
for any nearby movement
which will sate the hungry emptiness
born of sun-warmed
and eons-old reptilian neurologies.

There is no evil in the narrow yellow eye slits
nor in the coilspring-tight body ready now to lunge

The quick pointing scarlett/black tongue is not
pointing there, there, and there
in malevolence
nor in split-seconds of greed beyond need.

There is no evil here in this
spring warmed shale bedrock
where waits the winter-hungry snake.
It is only the still point
of the universe
in the throes
of New Creation

Tao Te Ching #59, Governance

Standing at the edges of a bamboo forest,

(primordial forests of green shooting, sun-reaching stalks)

Standing quietly..

Tilt your ears and wait for the updrafting breezes

There. Hear it?

The opening chords of the universal symphony.

Now, listen again

and hear the world’s children

in cacophonous crying out

for

justice, something to eat, a drink of clean water

and the fiery love of a healthy mother’s eyes.

It is a single symphony, a serendipitous song,

but one encumbered and overwhelmed

too often

by the sounds of

well-fed men, and silk-sated women

wanting more of that for which they have no need.

In the deepest music of the earth

are the true things:

unwritten, resounding, and sun-reaching..

David B.Weber, 2011