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I love reading Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. I don’t know where I got that book, but I had that since college. Black covers, a little tattered, yellowish-brown pages. But I love the drawings in the book, I wish I could sketch the same way. My book is published in June 1945.

I don’t know much about Kahlil Gibran either. All I know is that he was a great poet. So I just googled about his life. According to Wikipedia, Kahlil Gibran (6 January 1883 - 10 April 1931) is a Lebanese-American artist, poet and writer. He was born in Lebanon but raised in the USA. Ooops, same birthday with my brother, January 6th (1981). Since he had had no formal schooling in Lebanon, school officials placed him in a special class for immigrants to learn English. Gibran’s English teacher suggested that he Anglicise the spelling of his name (then Khalil) in order to make it more acceptable to American society. Kahlil Gibran was the result.

While most of Gibran’s early writings were in Syriac and Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. Gibran also took part in the New York Pen League, also known as the “immigrant poets”. Much of Gibran’s writings deal with Christianity, mostly condemning the corrupt practices of the Eastern churches and their clergies during that era. His poetry is notable for its use of formal language, as well as insights on topics of life using spiritual terms.

Past forward, Gibran’s best-known work, The Prophet, is written in 1923 and composed of 26 poetic essays, which became popular during the 1960s, especially with the American counterculture movements. The Prophet remains famous to this day, having been translated into more than 20 languages. One of my favorite contents of The Prophet is “On Marriage”. I even used the poem when I gave a wedding gift to my highschool friend, beth and her hubby dino. I wrote a short letter and included the whole poem, together with my gift - a figurine of two bodies together, symbolic of marriage and union. I hope they still keep that, and the letter as well.

Anyhow, I wish to share with you Kahlil Gibran’s thoughts on marriage:

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On Marriage
Kahlil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

marriage
kahlil gibran

               

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 1:17 am and is filed under Love and Relationships . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.