Homelessness, Taoistically Speaking
Social uselessness is a virtue of its own,
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 park benches.
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,
Then, 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.
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
To see the ones hovering around the fringes,
Start by studying their shadows;
If they should deign to speak,
Listen with your eyes,
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;
It will come 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.
Copyright © William Masonis | Year Posted 2008
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