When your wishes are not quite filled up
Something goes without filling them up.
You become inactive and receptive.
Things are born and perish.
There is nothing you are not:
From what is without awareness
Something goes before you.
And this something --
Living - Yet non-living -- Awakens the Creative.
To awaken the Creative --
Is this the image of what you experience?
So then,
Thus, at heart,
You're a sharecropper, orphaned, free, but humble.
other readings further drafts from the same generation
deeper strata where the meaning thins
the original
1. (Those who) possessed in highest degree the attributes (of the
Tao) did not (seek) to show them, and therefore they possessed them
(in fullest measure). (Those who) possessed in a lower degree those
attributes (sought how) not to lose them, and therefore they did not
possess them (in fullest measure).
2. (Those who) possessed in the highest degree those attributes did
nothing (with a purpose), and had no need to do anything. (Those who)
possessed them in a lower degree were (always) doing, and had need to
be so doing.
3. (Those who) possessed the highest benevolence were (always seeking)
to carry it out, and had no need to be doing so. (Those who)
possessed the highest righteousness were (always seeking) to carry it
out, and had need to be so doing.
4. (Those who) possessed the highest (sense of) propriety were (always
seeking) to show it, and when men did not respond to it, they bared
the arm and marched up to them.
5. Thus it was that when the Tao was lost, its attributes appeared;
when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence
was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the
proprieties appeared.
6. Now propriety is the attenuated form of leal-heartedness and good
faith, and is also the commencement of disorder; swift apprehension is
(only) a flower of the Tao, and is the beginning of stupidity.
7. Thus it is that the Great man abides by what is solid, and eschews
what is flimsy; dwells with the fruit and not with the flower. It is
thus that he puts away the one and makes choice of the other.