from Tao Te Ching Meditations: Bones Buzzards

60Ruling Rome should be like cooking a rockbass or minnow,a sunfish or bluegill fresh from the Danube,in the courtyard or on the grass by a tentunder a frontier of stars, under a blue sky.

Upwind there should be angels or horsemen watching on,and downwind animals and the souls of the dead joining in.Ruling Rome should not be a big thing, too overtaxing.Make it slow and easy like singing or breathing.

Yet they tell me there is an emperor in the Westwho uses the bones of dissidents for weavinghis family’s garments, that he feeds the offshore fishwith the gore and remnants of freebooting economics.

They say that he fancies himself King of the Andes,that even his name carries the sound of wingsand knives, his eagle’s quill quivers with pleasure in taking lives,that the words honor and serenity are banned from his empire.

Ruling a country should be like cooking a small fish,not baptizing mankind in the name of Prometheusor maliciously putting the flame of the tree of knowledgeto work as a bullet in a blue-collared throat.

Ruling a country should be a way of rejoicing in civic duty,living simply, owning nothing, like the great condor of Chilewhose wings sweep with stoical fire the cold, empty airwhere gods and philosophers mate without hope of hope or despair.