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Kahlil Gibran
Sand and Foam
Kahlil Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.
Sand and Foam is a book of aphorisms, poems, and parables by the author of "The Prophet" - a philosopher at his window commenting on the scene passing below.
In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In modern Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero.
“His power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life else it could not have been so universal and so potent, but the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own.”
I am for ever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam.
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
For ever.
* * *
Once I filled my hand with mist.
Then I opened it, and lo, the mist was a worm.
And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.
And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.
And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.
But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.
* * *
It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.
* * *
They say to me in their awakening, “You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea.”
And in my dream I say to them, “I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore.”
* * *
Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?”
* * *
The first thought of God was an angel.
The first word of God was a man.
* * *
We were fluttering, wandering, longing creatures a thousand thousand years before the sea and the wind in the forest gave us words.
Now how can we express the ancient of days in us with only the sounds of our yesterdays?
* * *
The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, “A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us be silent again.”
