Clouds of Mutual Aid

No cloud hoards its rain,
No river demands tribute from streams —
The Tao flows without hierarchy
Through valleys that never learned ownership.

Empty-handed, we came to this teaching:
That butterflies and breadfruit
Share secrets of abundance
Without masters or metrics.

Watch how bamboo groves
Pass nutrients through underground networks,
No stem claiming supremacy,
No root keeping count.

The sage sees clearly:
Property lines drawn in sand
Wash away like illusions
In the morning mist.

Ten thousand things
Rise and fall together,
Like clouds forming and dissolving,
Each drop containing the whole.

When the wind moves freely
Through mountain passes,
Who can say where one breeze ends
And another begins?

So too our labor flows —
From each according to their nature,
To each as waves return to shore,
Effortless as autumn leaves falling.

The true community
Needs no external law,
Just as geese need no commander
To know their formation.

In the spaces between
Our separate selves dissolving,
We find the ancient wisdom:
That giving and receiving are one motion,

Like the breath of the universe,
Like weather patterns that know
No borders or nations —
Only the endless dance of becoming.

This is the way:
Not forced equality,
But natural harmony,
Like clouds sharing the sky.