For Kate: On Children
And new mothers everwhere…a poem from The Prohet
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.
by Kahlil Gibran – The Prophet
art children poetry
14 April, 2005 @ 4:20 am
Thanks, Robin.
When my currently sleep-deprived mind has moments of coherent thought I sometimes think about how much my life has changed in less than a year. Pushing a stroller along Main Street of this little town I imagine I am actually part of some kind of witness protection program. Who would think of looking for me here? Who would recognize me?
The most surprising thing, however, is the experience of love. Sterling – this tiny, squirmy being – has cracked open my broken heart and extracted an amazing new kind of love that seems to be growing everyday. It’s astonishing, really. And recently it occured to me that – for people who have more than one child – it might be possible to feel this way about more than one person. Love is infinite.