Homelessness, Taoistically Speaking

Social uselessness is a virtue of its own kind; Those we cast aside, glance at and then away from quickly, Lest they notice, and smell our guilt, Are free to live immodestly, There being no need for posturing When one's invisible. Trees that grow lumpen or misshapen Are left to live long and go unfelled, Never to be transformed into pencils and parkbenches. They carry on, in love with the sun, Spreading their arms to embrace the sky Season upon season; The children skip over their roots And lovers loll beneath their boughs, Their shade relieves the weary, Their age comforts the old. No carpenter's ambition Will ever reach their wondrous hearts And, perforce, transform them. When they kick you, unwanted Out of the hospital psych ward, Your illness not important because you've done Nothing to make the newspapers, You can wander like a prophet, complete in yourself Living your truths without needing an apologist. And so it is with those we look away from, The odd shapes among us who don't fit our spaces. There's more to be seen by looking between things Than can be found by looking straight at them; The unshaped space around us speaks with an incessant tongue Interpretable only by the spirit. So if you really want to slip the blindfold for a change And see the ones hovering around the fringes, Start by studying their shadows, And if they should deign to speak, Listen with your eyes, And if you want to feel them, Reach deep inside yourself and rub the sore spots You spend the day denying. Reflection sustains reality Like dewdrops on a leaf. Try to understand this like a lesson and you'll fail, But accept it without judgement And it comes to you. No man finds more truth than he who looks for nothing; This is writ upon the bark of twisted trees. Read it, then know what wisdom is.