Huang's Tao Te Ching

for Scott

How can you return the copy I lent you
when the book is flown, relentless
as a Canda goose? Out there, Scott,
on the shadowy arc of Tao where
things pass unseen beneath our feet, our eyes
Huang's translation of the Silk Text is gone
to the nameless harmless he-man borrower
who thoughtlessly boosted it
while browsing the edgy insights...

"Stop your hole. Close your door."
—it said you read it often—
"Soften your brightness. File your sharpness."
Harmless may be a good path
but with us uptown Western stragglers it's
bound to be a put-down. No threat!
Huang had just finished his literal
Tao Te Ching and was listening
to his favorite, Tommy Dorsey,
when Mao's merciless gang
with clippers cut his thread.
Home from exile, near Beijing, he lies
in a grave beyond his work a half day's bus ride
from the prison that raveled his one life.