I stood before a garden not too long ago:
virgin soil, pure, pristine, untouched by hand or hoe.
A garden in which anything might be made to grow.
As the sun rose on the land, there in the morning dew,
in the garden, small and weak, some fragile blossoms grew.
Their lives were mine to nurture. I had other things to do.
So the garden was ignored, the work there left unheeded.
I let the land lie fallow, the soil left unseeded
as I tended other tasks where I thought that I was needed.
But ill winds blow across the land and plant unwanted seeds
that take root fast, and overrun, and generate more weeds.
Still too busy with my life, I saw to selfish needs.
In my mind I was aware that seeds grow wild and fast.
Still it shocked me on the day when I returned at last
to discover that the harvest had long since come and passed.
Now in the autumn of my life I know the bitter truth:
the blossoms left untended while pursuing the uncouth
were my children's innocence, the flower of their youth.
