THE COMING OF THE SHIP
An experimental poem where the first canto is used from THE PROPHET by Khalil Gibran.
Where I quoted his words literally I used quotation marks.
Fulfilled set sail and last board ship.
“A voice cannot carry the tongue
and the lips that gave it wings.
Alone must it seek the ether. Alone
and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun”
So there they were, his brothers,
his sister, mother, and father, welcoming
him back to where they went before him.
“How often have you sailed in my dreams
and now you come in my awakening,
which is my deeper dream”.
Living in a sinking dreamworld
so often he called his wife his mother
then lived again the quarrels with his brothers,
proclaimed the love for his only sister.
“Ready am I to go and my eagerness
with sails, full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe
in this still air. Only another loving
look cast backward”.
Intens and fully focused is the look at his wife.
She knows, he cannot go yet.
So much to tell and teach.
“If this is my day of harvest, in what fields
have I sowed the seed, and in what
unremembered seasons! Much in his heart
remains unsaid. He himself could not speak
his deeper secret”.
Then appeared Almitra, the seeress. She spoke to him
and he was full of trust. She hailed him and said:
Prophet of God, in quest of the uttermost, long have
you searched the distances for your ship. Now the ship
has come and you must go.
Yet postpone your final farewell; ere you leave us,
speak to us and give us your disclosure. Tell us all
that has been shown you of that which is between
birth and death.
“People of Orphalese, of what can I speak
save that which is even now moving within
your souls?”
He closed his eyes, so tired, so tired.
Dearest, let me sleep a while. I promise not to go just now.
We will speak again, the sails are down, waiting for favorable winds.