I watch you ....

I watch you,

Seek and scuttle

from pot to pot

Still you scuttle

even as I offer,

It is not to be a fairy tale ending.

"... ducks on a pond ...."

... ducks on a pond,
A grass bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing:
What a little thing
To remember for years –
To remember with tears!

“A Memory” by William Allingham

"Keep a quiet heart ...."

“Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, sleep like a dog.”

(Li Ching-Yun, died at 197)

"As the years go by, give me but peace ...."

As the years go by, give me but peace,

freedom from the ten thousand ensnarements.
I ask myself and always answer:
What can be better than coming home?
A wind from the pine-trees blows my sash,
And my lute is bright with the mountain moon.
You ask me about good and evil fortune? ...
Hark, on the lake there’s a fisherman singing.

The Jade Mountain, Wang Wei