Yang & Water
Proverb
Kill the chicken before the monkey.
Poem
Don’t teach monkeys to climb –
Or pour water onto wet plaster.
This is known already to all,
Why bother to repeat things?
The snow may be thick-fallen
But when sunshine comes, it melts.
Yet none of you, my lords,
Will offer your retirement.
Meditation
Don’t do what everyone else has already done!
This is the message behind this delightful, teasing poem.
If you keep redoing what has already been done perfectly well before,
you will be wasting your time.
Choose wisely how to act – as the proverb says.
Much of what we do is as irrelevant as the snow –
beautiful to see, but not permanent.
©Loes Raaphorst 10/2005