THE COMING OF THE SHIP

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.