Chapter 27

If you could walk perfectly
you would leave no trace.
If you could speak perfectly
your words would be like birdsong,
lovely, then gone.
If you could make perfect decisions
you would not stop to calculate.
You could be secure without locks,
bound without cord.
That’s how the sage abandons no one
and helps everyone, without trying.
Maybe people think his light is shrouded;
he knows the light and its shroud
need one another.
If he teaches bad people to be good,
it’s because they taught him first.
The wise are lost.
That is called the crux.

© 2003