Confucius Analects 3:3 “The Master said, ‘If a man be without virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rights of propriety? If a man is without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?” *
Transitions
The modern has begun to decay—
even Shou Xing** stumbles, his hourglass cracked.
The cycle grinds on, rebirth, then suffering.
Tradition peeks through fractured corners,
where carelessness scatters the ashes of days.
Where is the green of nature’s rebirth?
In the people’s hearts, I find only drought.
The wheel turns: splendor to provocation,
each revolt a storm, each sigh a season.
Call back the pensive hero—
let ink spill odes to halt Time’s march.
Hear the old gods whisper
through the cracks of dying worlds.
Build not a future, but a return:
the earth remembers how to breathe.
*James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics Vol. 1: Confucian Analects (London: St. George Press, 2024), III: III pg.155
**Shou Xing - Chinese God of time and longevity