Torrential waters collapsing swallow speed tunneled
Out of the cave a stream gargling throat
Falling braids haltering over mountain steep
Tousled spattering bubbles on the lake
Swaying breezily a waltz moving rounds
Rejoicing to be debating to while away
Leaning gracefully reeling swoon and pop
To fall zillions of grains as if blown of sand
Around a stone the shape of man
Having two birds perching on fingertips
Gazing at the Universe as if mapping its perplexity.
It joys my soul to stop here and have a drink
And take a look at the breast of this proud mountain to
read
The history of the world written on the ribs of its slopes
Caving shoulders rising-lips drinking sky
And the ancient cedars their vulturine wings
Facing space by their spearing years
Arid the years dropping ashen leaves
Floating on the ever tumbling down the yawn between
hills
Splitting around beauty-spots merging again
Meandering down eye travel to the sea
Welcomed by brigades of thirsty spahis rushing to the
shore
Ah! What a luscious bewildering creation
Where a world seems created but a piece of heaven in a
dream.
Here Gibran was born and reared
A boy soodling in company of his courage and hope
Seemingly indignant behind the bars of his dreams.
One day, I saw him worried
My hand upon his shoulder, I said,
“My boy, what ails you here
Don’t you see this paradise of your land?”
“Father,” he said,
“Here I have no plow to cultivate the field I own
And reap the harvest of my aspirations
Nor available possibilities to explore
I would a change of climate for a change of fate
My cause living the eyes of the birds
A sight cleaving into hope to find
The missing plow
Turn the earth into furrows Seed the fallow
And reap the harvest of my brain.”
Son, when I think of your prudence
Reflecting shell of self words uttered of faith
Unsheathing your vision of trust
I say, God be with you
And keep sessile to your aerial of sense
Having will turn it shell and peddle oar
And sail over the ocean sweep of years
Searching for the lantern of your fate.
Gibran eyed the birds gazing in space
And the sunstruck spray rising veil
Gathering racks fading on the waste
With the wind of indignation playing dice in his mind
One moment of thought, one moment of tears
He left memory keeping the past the future the world to
keep
Yon the horizon like a humming bird
Flitting from flower to flower
Plucking the petals of wisdom from the orchard of time
Reaping the field seeded with glints of prophecy in his
mind
Where he wrote The Prophet and a Prophet made.