A mediocre butcher replaces his knife every month, but the great one’s tool lasts years (less force, more control). In the Zhuangzi, we meet Cook Ding, who has so mastered the Way that his blade never dulls. His secret? He sees through a steer’s density. With his eyes shut, he attends to its airiness, its million miniscule seams, and, as though he is performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove, his edge flits through hollows. Zip. Zoop. He never touches a tendon but the whole beast falls to pieces.
In the same way, I master these bonds. Before, I’d wear down the fetters. New shackles each month, which took a toll on my ankles. Not anymore. I bend my knees, close my eyes, and—zip, zoop—I ease through invisible openings. While I stretch in reticulate shade, my chains lie silent and still. Sure, I keep pretty close to this tree that I’m bound to. I dance pretty close to my trammels. You see, the first step was to love their indulgence.
When everything else
had failed, one evening I knelt
and kissed my restraints.
George David Clark is the author of Newly Not Eternal (LSU) and Reveille (Arkansas), which won the Miller Williams Prize. He is coeditor, with Lew Klatt, of Playing with Fire: Christian Poets Reflect on Faith and Practice, forthcoming from Baylor. Since 2011, he has edited 32 Poems.
Photo by Alexey Demidov on Unsplash
