Confucius Analects 2:24 “The master said, ‘For a man to sacrifice a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery.’” *
Do Not Take My Innocence
Do not take my innocence—
let me be wild, untethered,
a dandelion seed on the wind’s breath,
a hymn the sky remembers.
Do not clip my wings, then call it love,
do not name me in your gilded book
I was born to ride the tempests,
to trace the horizon’s vanishing edge.
Let me fly—
not as your captive falcon,
but as the storm’s own daughter,
kissing the waves where blue dissolves into forever.
And if I fall, let it be
into the mouth of the sun.
*James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics Vol. 1: Confucian Analects (London: St. George Press, 2024), II: XXIV pg.154