I am a fan of well-written poetry; I always feel poetry is an extraordinary perception of the ordinary.
Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American poet who wrote on human experiences, relationships, spiritual choices.
The poem I am sharing today is about "Children" - How we connect to them viscerally & deeply, how they are not our possessions and how we have to learn to let go of them gracefully when they
grow-up.
My kids are 21 and 14 now; it has been amazing to raise them, listen to them, grow with them, and, of course, I too am learning to let go, loosen my grip on their journey forward.
Definitely not easy; definitely still struggle with it, but I do understand that if the bonds of connection & friendship have to grow between us, I have to listen better to their different music, different melodies.
"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"