What the old know the young don’t believe the wiles of youth are not lost on the wise: as a busy farmer sees a fox does not call his dog or get a gun the old allow freedom, turn a blind eye The young wonder is life always like this, the elders say, not […]
Category: Family
Has It Really Come to This?
The story has been told and retold: Ben Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when a lady asked him…. “Well, Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy? Franklin, “A republic, if you can keep it.“ But that’s not the end of the story which most […]
The Voice
If I spoke from the heart and you could hear You could ride the sound Back to the beginning and see you who you are If I spoke from the heart, my tears would be a river Running to the sea An ocean of sweetest water If I spoke from the heart, my joyful laughter […]
From Where I Stand I See
decade to decade everything is falling apart everything is coming together if I sit down stay in one place I move forward if I move forward walk on two legs I stay in one place if I hold on keep what I have I lose it if I let go what I hold it comes […]
Gwisin at Seoraksan
An hour in autumn– alone yet not I saw a stretch of centuries, people, forms I’d been that made me what I am today– sad for what fights to spite death but cannot win pushing against a tide of joy and pain— Listen, the last cicada singing in a twisted pine chanting the past and […]
What is There?
What is there in the end but forgiveness And forgiving one’s self. What is regret when we cannot go back To change anything? We only move forward To more change, the slow breakdown Of the body, aging and death There is that, of course– The quicker one can do it the better: Live so the […]