No Way: An American Tao Te Ching
Publisher: LSU Press
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No Way: An American Tao Te Ching explores the art of living in the fast-paced, dangerous, unpredictable contemporary world. Lucid and wise in the spirit of its ancient Chinese predecessor, No Way functions as a kind of offbeat-yet-deadly-serious manual on the conduct of life. With an openness to complexity and mystery, Romtvedt brings the Tao into the social turmoil of a twenty-first-century United States beset by political strife, mass shootings, and financial greed. No Way combats cynicism and malaise with wry verse that offers readers an invitation to guide themselves forward, free of sages and rulers.
Selections from No Way: An American
Tao Te Ching
The Names
No way I'm telling you
my secrets. I'm not even
telling you my name.
It's David.
The Lord told Adam to name everything
and then said, "But when you talk to me,
there's no need to use my name.
I'm the only one here."
It's not as if things were so mysterious.
A fool knows that when he sees
the moon shimmer in the black water
of a midnight pond, it's not the real moon.
The sun rises and the water goes blue.
The moon, so clearly present moments before
grows dim as the water grows bright,
darkness lending the other a sliver of light.
Remembering the Wedding
When a couple separates, it's hard not to stick
with one and let the other go. Sitting on the fence,
you risk being reviled by people on both sides.
A friend says, "My wife came home and found me
with another woman. I tried to make a joke, said,
'I got the laundry done.' Really, what could I say?"
"Nothing," I want to tell him, but keep still,
seeing the lover in bed, the washing machine,
the wife, the joke. Is that a joke?
His ex, also a friend, says, "I opened the door
and there he was with a woman I'd never seen,
each of them a bellows pumping oxygen on a fire."
I admire this metaphor made when she was angry
and hurt. And I've always thought her attractive
though it's not something I could tell her, even now.
I look out the window to the water, a tug
hauling a load of logs to the mill. The slices
of wedding cake laid out on their plates.