Being a little cynical about any progress,

I’m a little bit indolent, as all old men are.

I don’t want to race about in a field

For a ball, which is equally round for all,

As I prefer to saunter along a poplar alley

Or a willow bank to listen to

The bird’s chirp and the children’s laughter.

Life is so precarious that when

I know something truly satisfies me,

I hold on to it tight, as a mother

Hugs her baby close to her breast

In a dark stormy night—as years go by

I start to be a little bit afraid to no avail.

I have really no desire for exploring

The South Pole or scaling the Himalayas.

When some Europeans queue up for years

To get a chance to climb up the Everest

In a accompany of a group of worth

Half a dollar’s local shepherd-guides

Whose job is to rise on the roof of the world

Every regular shift, I just think to myself,

“What ‘a race discrimination’ and

‘The world-wide fame’ we are talking about?”

When others do that, I ask sincerely,

"What do you do that for?

Do you have to go to the South Pole

To be much more than happy from that?

Or maybe you are so much naive person

Who is thinking that the human viruses

Are not yet so fatal to the poor penguins?"

Sad topic aside, I go to the movies

And theatres, sometimes, but in the core

Of my hollow heart I feel that

A real young lady’s laughter gives me

As much real enjoyment and happiness

As an imaginary beauty’s laughter

From the stage or on the silver screen.

I compare the two and I stay at home in the end.

Frankly speaking, I don’t believe that

Kissing my own wife is necessarily insipid

And that wives of the other guys

Are necessarily more pretty, sexier

And much more attractive only because

They are other men’s wives. . . In a word,

I don’t ache to reach the foot of the hill

When I’m in the middle of the deep sea,

And I don’t strive to be on the peak

When I’m at the mountain foot. At last,

I do prefer to drink what wine there is

In my store and enjoy what scenery there

As before my old but still keen eyesight.