Life is complete with children at your feet
And a bamboo grove which hides your cot
In the rustling shade beneath the cliffs.
If the patches in your improvised garden
Are fruitless sterile, to make them fertile,
A young calf will be helpful indeed.
Teach your kids to read, too, in spare hours
Between chopping firewood, fly-fishing
And pondering, sitting on your low porch—
Not for fame, nor for their white collar growth,
But for the lineage and continuity, both.
Brew your wine and plant lots of fruit trees
And from time to time clean up your pond
With water flowers and two golden fish in it
For the sake of the accomplished harmony;
So, keep in good order your ‘garden-home’
For generations of thinkers and artists to be
Who will sit under the shade of shady trees,
And your grateful readers and admirers
Will then be benefited a hundredfold! Truly,
Tradition and taste take time to be grown up.
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Thanks Alexander.
Chris
Being "successful" is not about writing your own autobiography and publishing it, because I know my life very well already. Considering who we are and what we do, do you think when we write an autobiography that everyone is going to flock to get it? What does it mean to be successful? To be successful is to have a good life. Plant gardens, sow the seeds, harvest when ripe. Take time with family. That is successful to me! Life is not about money, money, fame, fame. Life is about doing what you like to do most. I enjoy writing my stories and poetry, and that's the truth too!
Sandie