The Prophet ~ Children written by Khalil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

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.

Though You Do Not Know Me (draft)

I will give up my life for you
I will man the streets to keep you safe
I will fight oppression and injustice
To bring you closer, closer to a more sane world

In a world where happiness is abundant
Where life will be free from unnecessary troubles
Brought about to man by man himself
A world where love can finally be allowed to grow

I will offer up my service to you and your generation
I will withstand the torrents of the rain
I will teach what little I know
So when you grow older, you will know better

And you will live, much more than we have
You will practice loving, more than we ever did
You will sing songs that deserve to be sung
And you will be, who we only dreamed of becoming

Together with many others, I promise to struggle
We will win, and you will live
To catch the rain when it falls
And remember in love, what has been fought

...though you do not know me

A note to my journal.

[untitled]
May 19, 2001

I take a walk under the fast lane
To get away from it all---
I pass a couple of "black" folks in hoods
As the Oakland police silence the streets...

I walk out of the grocery store with beer in hand
I see the gas prices are soaring
But my attention focused on someone
Sitting by the curb and cursing
He says, "@#%$! How can I be so
incompetent?! I should have known better!"
He was laid off from work, my first real subject
Of a capitalist boom-and-bust cycle
Of being not "cut" for the job
He blames himself for not being the man---
He has yet to go home to his kids, his wife
"What am I gonna tell 'em?" he says
As he fears the truth in their eyes...

So we speak of struggles
And we continue to "ramble on"
But there is nothing quite silencing
To see the deeper truth to
What we are saying
For the subject is in fact a human
And is robbed not of a job
But one's esteem, dignity, self, and pride
A life deserving, A life blessed

...And so now I pop the bottle
To drink to the pain of slow death
Indeed, my friend
It is a terrible, terrible world.

Untitled

It is a cruel irony
To be and to not be
The pictures are not yours
Your future cannot be you

But you are who you are
Now in this singular time
This is all you have

This is all you are.

(date unknown)