The tractor harrowing one farm over
coughs and quits. Now there’s only tree frogs
and the thin half-moonlight pewtering the leaves
and glinting off the fender of the rental.
The tree frogs chant in phase, then out,
then in, as though composed by Philip Glass.
I’ve read that Lao Tzu,
leaving community for wilderness,
paused at the border, where the guard asked
for some record of his teachings.
So: the Tao de Ching. The thin line
between lost past and dim future opens
into an evening and a porch
on which to rock and listen,
listen and rock. Lao Tzu’s actual existence –
the path-following, border-crossing one –
is, so I’ve also read,
doubtful, like Robin Hood’s and Homer’s.
In close-up, and in memory,
the tree frog wasn’t really credible,
a translucent elf from some outer space,
splayed, finger pads extended,
on the porch screen. I gaped at it;
it gaped into the wide night.
The tao that can be spoken
is not the true Tao: so the sage,
who probably did not exist, and with
exquisite paradox, began.
I slipped off to fetch the camera
and when I got back it was gone.