Funny Uncle
He spoke of the Dao without embellishment and
He operates at the margin of precision,
When the universe quavers.
But he really has been broken, shunned, and relegated
To the smallest human privilege,
He contains no rancor.
He speaks with choppy syntax,
Yet the semantics are precise and clean.
He is from the old country where he is still.
He contemplates the ocean each day for
The bruises that rip the waves, in this,
He is Inspector Clouseau.
But he voices like Arthur Rimbaud,
And like Galois of the academy’s periphery.
A veritable monkey wrench in the soup.
Funny Uncle doesn’t know that he is funny,
Or else ignores it like being generous
To the point that he depletes himself.
He speaks of hills and valleys,
His spirits thus rise and sink,
All everyday machinery.
He speaks of faces and voices
Of people deserved to be loved.
They are, as yet, quite ordinary.
He speaks of mountains and lakes
That are still, still in the company
Of Kantian morals.
He embraces truth, but only with a small “t,”
When all the wars in the cosmos are contended
By followers of the truth with a capital “T.”
He speaks of arrows that pierce and wound his heart,
But just as soon he forgets the perpetrators.
He understands the vast and the small.
He is dying of everyday living.
He is unaware of his impending death.
Even then he contains no rancor.
Koon Woon
February 11, 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment