This Is the Real Tao
Anyone unwilling to settle for ready-made philosophy
must learn to stitch together something suitable
from the scraps life hands us--
and so:
if the bolts aren't rusty
and the wood doesn't split
and the plastic bags provided contain all the right parts
then I
must balance
that with the times when
I go to the hardware store twice
and return twice
with the wrong bracket, the too-long bolt.
When I hit the nail on the head
I recall the day it was my thumb
and account the sweet thunk of steel biting wood
to comfort my old injury
and do this without dimming the pleasure of today,
a day when things go unaccountably right.
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXXXAXXXXXBBX XXXAXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 604 |
Words | 114 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 6 |
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"This Is the Real Tao" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/88564/this-is-the-real-tao>.
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