Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran (59 page)

You touch my thoughts with your
gentle fingers, and my contemplation flows like
a strong stream.

With your burning lips you print a kiss
upon the lips of my soul
and set it aflame like a torch.

I have accompanied you, O Night, and followed you
until we became akin.

I loved you until my being became a diminutive image
of your being.

In my dark self are glittering stars strewn
by my emotions.
And in my heart shines a moon lighting the processions
of my dreams.
In my sleepless soul a silence reveals
the lover's secrets and echoes the
worshipper's prayers,
And my face wears a magic mask. Torn by
the agony of death, it is mended by the songs of youth.
We are both alike in every way, Night.

Will man consider me boastful if I liken myself
unto you?
Does not man boast of his resemblance to the day?
I am like you, Night, and we are both accused of
being what we are not.
I am like you even though twilight does not crown me
with its golden clouds.
I am like you although morn does not adorn the
hem of my garment with its rosy rays.
I am like you though I am not encircled by the milky
way.
I am night boundless and calm; there is no beginning
to my obscurity and no end to my depth.

When the souls rise in the
light of their joy, my soul ascends glorified by the
dark of grief.
I am like you, Night! And when my morn comes, then
my time will end.

Earth

How beautiful you are, Earth, and how sublime!
How perfect is your obedience to the light, and
how noble is your submission to the sun!

How lovely you are, veiled in shadow, and how
charming your face, masked with obscurity!

How soothing is the song of your dawn, and how
harsh are the praises of your eventide!
How perfect you are, Earth, and how majestic!

I have walked over your plains, I have climbed your
stony mountains; I have descended into your valleys;
I have entered into your caves.
In the plains, I found your dream; upon the mountain
I found your pride; in the valley I witnessed your
tranquility; in the rocks your resolution; in the
cave your secrecy.

You are weak and powerful and humble and haughty.
You are pliant and rigid, and clear and secret.
I have ridden your seas and explored your rivers and
followed your brooks.
I heard Eternity speak through your ebb and flow,
and the ages echoing your songs among your hills.
I listened to life calling to life in your mountain
passes and along your slopes.
You are the mouth and lips of Eternity, the strings
and fingers of Time, the mystery and solution of
Life.
Your Spring has awakened me and led me to your fields
where your aromatic breath ascends like
incense.
I have seen the fruits of your Summer labor.
In Autumn, in your vineyards, I saw your
blood flow as wine.
Your Winter carried me into your bed, where the snow
attested your purity.
In your Spring you are an aromatic essence; in your
Summer you are generous; in your Autumn you are
a source of plenty.

One calm and clear night I opened the windows and
doors of my soul and went out to see you, my
heart tense with lust and greed.
And I saw you staring at the stars that smiled at
you. So I cast away my fetters, for I
found out that the dwelling place of the soul is in
your space.
Its desires grow in your desires; its peace rests in
your peace; and its happiness is in the golden
dust which the stars sprinkle upon your body.

One night, as the skies turned gray, and my soul was
wearied and anxious, I went out to you.
And you appeared to me like a giant, armed with
raging tempests, fighting the past with the present,
replacing the old with the new, and letting the
strong disperse the weak.

Whereupon I learned that the law of the people is
your law.
I learned that he who does not break his dry branches
with his tempest, will die wearily,
And he who does not use revolution, to strip
his dry leaves, will slowly perish.

How generous you are, Earth, and how strong is your
yearning for your children lost between that which
they have attained and that which they could not
obtain.
We clamor and you smile; we flit
but you stay!

We blaspheme and you consecrate.
We defile and you sanctify.
We sleep without dreams; but you
dream in your eternal wakefulness.

We pierce your bosom with swords and spears,
And you dress our wounds with oil and balsam.
We plant your fields with skulls and bones,
and from them you rear cypress
and willow trees.

We empty our wastes in your bosom, and you fill
our threshing-floors with wheat sheaves, and
our winepresses with grapes.

We extract your elements to make cannons and
bombs, but out of our elements you create
lilies and roses.

How patient you are, Earth, and how merciful!
Are you an atom of dust raised by
the feet of God when He journeyed from the east
to the west of the Universe?
Or a spark projected from the furnace
of Eternity?
Are you a seed dropped in the field of the
firmament to become God's tree reaching above
the heavens with its celestial branches?
Or are you a drop of blood in the veins of the
giant of giants, or a bead of sweat upon his
brow?

Are you a fruit ripened by the sun?
Do you grow from the tree of Absolute
Knowledge, whose roots extend through
Eternity, and whose branches soar through
the Infinite?

Are you a jewel placed by the God of Time in the
palm of the God of Space?

Who are you, Earth, and what are you?
You are “I,” Earth!

You are my sight and my discernment.
You are my knowledge and my
dream.
You are my hunger and my thirst.
You are my sorrow and my joy.
You are my inadvertence and my wakefulness.
You are the beauty that lives in my eyes,
the longing in my heart, the everlasting life
in my soul.

You are “I,” Earth.
Had it not been for my being,
You would not have been.

Perfection

You ask me, my brother, when will man reach
perfection. Hear my answer:
Man approaches perfection when he
feels that he is an infinite space and a sea
without a shore,
An everlasting fire, an unquenchable
light,
A calm wind or a raging tempest, a thundering
sky or a rainy heaven,
A singing brook or a wailing rivulet, a tree abloom
in Spring, or a naked sapling
in Autumn,
A rising mountain or a descending valley,
A fertile plain or a desert.

When man feels all these, he has already
reached halfway to perfection. To attain his goal
he must then perceive
that he is a child dependent upon his mother,
a father responsible for his family,
A youth lost in love,
An ancient wrestling against his past,
A worshipper in his temple, a criminal in
his prison,
A scholar amidst his parchments,
An ignorant soul stumbling between the darkness of his.
night and the obscurity of his day,
A nun suffering between the flowers of her faith and
the thistles of her loneliness,
A prostitute caught between the fangs of her
weakness and the claws of her needs,
A poor man trapped between his bitterness and his
submission,
A rich man between his greed and his conscience,
A poet between the mist of his twilight and the
rays of his dawn.

Who can experience, see, and understand
these things can reach perfection and
become a shadow of God's Shadow.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

I said to my friend,

“See her leaning over his arm?
Yesterday she leaned over my arm.”

And he said:

“Tomorrow she will lean over mine.”

And I said,

“See her sitting at his side;
And yesterday she sat at my side.”

And he said:

“Tomorrow she will sit at mine.”

And I said,

“Don't you see her drinking from his
Cup?
And yesterday she sipped from mine.”

And he said:

“Tomorrow she will drink from mine.”

And I said,

“Look how she glances at him with eyes
full of love!
And with just such love, yesterday
she glanced at me.”