Just Read...
I'm not a big fan of poetry. Mostly because I simply don't have the patience for it. I read it too quickly and miss out on its meaning. It takes a lot to get me to savor a passage. But many passages in this book touched me deeply. I read and re-read them. Many of Kahlil Gibran's poems and writings have to do with love, meaning, life. They are pregnant with truth. On top of this, his writing style is absolutely exquisite and profoundly beautiful. A couple of examples:
So said a sheet of snow-white paper, ‘Pure was I created, and pure will I remain for ever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me’.
The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying and it laughed in its dark heart; but it never dared to approach her. And the multicoloured pencils heard her also, and they too never came near her.
And the snow-white sheet of paper did remain pure and chaste for ever – pure and chaste – and empty. (78)
Or, consider this beautiful reflection on children:
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. (81)
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