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 to-morrow, 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.
Copyright @ Kahlil Gibran.
image: Picasso
I read this passage from "The Prophet" many years before I became a mother.
I probably identified more with the role of the child at the time; these words confirming my belief that I was destined to separate from my parents' home, as well as their values and sensibilities.
Now I find solace in this poem as a parent.
Here is my poem:
Broken hearts broken dreams
God's arrows shot through me
to a world beyond mine
Their pain isn't mine
though I feel it in my bones
Their triumphs belong to them
yet I inhale them as a balm
The cord is cut
again and again
Though I yearn to cast a line
and fish them back to me
they belong to "Life's
Longing" for itself.
