August

Abstract

Last night I found a box turtle. I picked him up, turned him over, felt his shell top and bottom, felt the sharp claws of his hind legs scratching my wrist, looked deep into his bright red eyes, and then set him back down in the leaf-mold, watching him crawl off slowly into the darkening woods. That box turtle brought me pleasure last night, pleasure like the pleasure I felt when I picked up another such turtle—in 1960—that might have been his father or his grandfather (I do know how to sex turtles; males have redder eyes, longer and slightly flatter tails). This turtle was a male. I well remember the pleasure of picking up that other turtle four decades ago—perhaps it was even the same turtle; box turtles can live for eighty years—just as I now remember the pleasure of picking up that turtle last night. Pleasure taken from nature is often just this simple. You feel it right away.

The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao;

The name that can be named is not the unchanging Name.

—Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching