Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Poem for Wednesday


Today's poem is brought to you by .

The Life of Love: Winter
By Kahlil Gibran


Come close to me, oh companion of my full life;
Come close to me and let not Winter's touch
Enter between us. Sit by me before the hearth,
For fire is the only fruit of Winter.

Speak to me of the glory of your heart, for
That is greater than the shrieking elements
Beyond our door.
Bind the door and seal the transoms, for the
Angry countenance of the heaven depresses my
Spirit, and the face of our snow-laden fields
Makes my soul cry.

Feed the lamp with oil and let it not dim, and
Place it by you, so I can read with tears what
Your life with me has written upon your face.
Bring Autumn's wine. Let us drink and sing the
Song of rememberance to Spring's carefree sowing,
And Summer's watchful tending, and Autumn's
Reward in harvest.

Come close to me, oh beloved of my soul; the
Fire is cooling and fleeing under the ashes.
Embrace me, for I fear loneliness; the lamp is
Dim, and the wine which we pressed is closing
Our eyes. Let us look upon each other before
They are shut.
Find me with your arms and embrace me; let
Slumber then embrace our souls as one.
Kiss me, my beloved, for Winter has stolen
All but our moving lips.

You are close by me, My Forever.
How deep and wide will be the ocean of Slumber,
and how recent was the dawn!

--------

The full poem is here. Gibran is one of those people, like Richard Bach, whom I know it is uncool in intellectual circles to acknowledge as an enormous influence on one's psychological and spiritual development, but there you are: The Prophet and Illusions are two of my touchstones from early adolescence (so is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, by the way, if you feel the need to unFriend me now). forwarded the URL to this poem yesterday; I hadn't read it in years and years.


, the cannon challenge: "Night Practice". Heh.

Last night at about 12:30 a.m. my husband announced that he was going to take his car in for servicing today, which would leave me without a vehicle. We quarreled, so he decided not to bring the car in today so I could have the van, as I have to review tonight and had wanted to get out for awhile today. The punchline is that I was so tired from discussing this until one in the morning that I slept late, and now I have to write articles and fold laundry and probably won't end up leaving the house anyway. Sigh.

One of my oldest friends in fandom called to tell me that she is coming to a seminar at the Pentagon next week and needs a place to crash and watch the Oscars. Whoo!

I forgot to mention that this was on my chair at dinner the other night. My son swears that it is not from him. I am a bit concerned that Russell Crowe is calling me "Mommy" (and apparently cannot spell his own name -- maybe he was very drunk?) but amused nonetheless.



On a related note, Jack and Stephen are FLYING off the bird feeder trying to make the seeds scatter all over the deck so they can eat them. Must remember to post pictures from the ice storm feeder incident later.

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