Charlie Patton / Prayer of Death (1929)
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.
Tao Te Ching (English Translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1987.)
