Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Of Children

It seems that 2 of my close friends are expecting to welcome a new member into their family ... well, ok maybe not for the next 7-8 months, but the excitement is brewing, I am sure. I can feel it coming. Congratulations!

In commemoration of these good news that I have received, I wanna share this piece with them:



"And a woman who held a baby 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."

... The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Salam,

This is one poem that i've been searching, read it few months back in a website but didnt manage to copy it. Thank you for posting it up. Kahlil Gibran is a wonderful poet.

Take care of your kids well...if you have one. Sesungguhnya anak itu adalah titipan Tuhan.

Dupa.

Anonymous said...

A very insightful poem..tells me that anything and everything belongs to the Beloved..even though e child is bourne of you, he is not yours...
Masya Allah..

TheHoopoe said...

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is to me, his best work.

Like Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, it has an enduring quality to it.

Open the book and read the verses again and again, and yet, it speaks to you differently each time - making you wiser over and over again - with his wonderful and impeccable insights on things we merely gleam over daily.