can you prevent your mind from straying can you hold to the one never let it slip can you make your breath as soft as a child's can you listen to its long-drawn out and in can you renew the glass through which you gaze so the world is whole and vivid can you feel a love of others and persuade yet resist the desire to dictate can you latch and unlatch the doors of perception yet be content to play the female part can your insight range and penetrate near and far yet back off not interfere then raise them every one nourish them all raise them but stake no claim influence them but do not dictate govern them but do not be drawn to legislate only this my teacher says can be called power Laozi Daodejing, 10 version by Martyn Crucefix
Daodejing by Laozi, versions by Martyn Crucefix, published by Enitharmon Press (London 2016), is reviewed on page 26. The poem from its chapter 10, ‘Resistance’, is reprinted here by kind permission of the publisher.