Poetry in Motion, Day 28 (Lao-tzu)

This is one of my favorite Poetry in Motion posters. Read it carefully, because the wisdom within is truly moving. This is from the Tao Te Ching (Chapter 11):

We Join Spokes Together in a Wheel

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being
but non-being is what we use.

Lao-tzu (ca. 604-531 B.C.E.)
translated by Stephen Mitchell

Just two more posters to go!

Previous BillyBlog Poetry in Motion posts:

from "My Grandmother's New York Apartment" by Elizabeth
 Alexander (Day 1)
from "A Bouquet" by Bei Dao (Day 2)
"Separation" by W.S. Merwin (Day 3)
"The Groundfall Pear" by Jane Hirshfield (Day 4)
"For Friendship" by Robert Creeley (Day 5)
from "Crazy Horse Speaks" by Sherman Alexie (Day 6)
"Hunger" by Billy Collins (Day 7)
from "Little Man Around the House" by Yusef Komunyakaa (Day 8)
"The Loon on Oak-Head Pond" by Mary Oliver (Day 9)
from "I Am Vertical" by Sylvia Plath (Day 10 - part 1)
"Two Haiku" by Kobayashi Issa (Robert Hass, trans.)
 (Day 10 - part 2)
"you say 'i will come' " by Lady Otomo No Sakanoe (Kenneth 
Rexroth, trans.) (Day 11)
"You Called Me Corazón" by Sandra Cisneros (Day 12)
"Too Much Heat, Too Much Work" by Tu Fu (Carolyn 
Kizer, trans.) (Day 13)
"Sew" by Donald Hall (Day 14)
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden (Day 15)
"Luck" by Langston Hughes (Day 16)
"0˚" by Elizabeth Spires (Day 17 - part 1)
"I Finally Managed to Speak with Her" by Hal 
Sirowitz (Day 17 - part 2)
"Window" by Carl Sandburg (Day 18)
" 'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily 
Dickinson (Day 19)
from "Watch Repair" by Charles Simic (Day 20)
"Thank You, My Dear" by Sappho (Mary Barnard, 
trans.) (Day 21)
"A Piece of the Storm" and "Keeping Things Whole"  by 
Mark Strand (Day 22)
"Lullaby for a Daughter" by Mary Jo Salter (Day 23)
"I Ask My Mother to Sing" by Li-Young Lee (Day 24)
"Let Me Think" by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Agha Shahid 
Ali, trans.) (Day 25)
from "Riding ona Railway Train" by Ogden Nash,
AND from "Antigone (lines 879-886)" by Sophocles,
translated by Robert Fagles AND "Quies, or Rest,"
by Allen Grossman (Day 26, "Three for Thursday").
"Exile" by Ellen Bryant Voigt (Day 27)