On returning home

I love Huangzhou where I was born, but now I’m far away in time and space. I’ve lived among strangers so long that my children talk in a strange dialect. I’m treated warmly and fed well but I miss my old friends. Life is too much like a shuttle, back and forth without attachments, like sitting and listening to the wind or watching the waves on Luo River. When I’m gone, please care for my willows, let the tender branches grow, and ask the old folk at the riverbank to dry my fishing net, and to remember me.