I'm on a bit of an E.B. White jag, having just finished his biography. He wrote lots of metered verse, and this poem struck me as a concise nugget of paternal advice:
Some day when I'm out of sight
Travel far, but travel light!
Stalk the turtle on the log,
Watch the heron spear the frog,
Find the things you only find
When you leave your bag behind;
Raise the sail your old man furled,
Hang your hat upon the world! ...[Boys], my tangible creation,
Happy in perambulation,
Work no harder than you have to.
Do you get me?
Happy Father's Day, to the bucolic slacker in all of us.
