4 Min read

1 book rec

On love

On leaving

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New vinyl plank flooring went into the basement this week. My dogs loved to have a pee party down there, especially when guests were visiting. So I was more than happy to see the urine-soaked carpet leave the house, a kind of indoor grass for my pets these past 16 years.

The workers moved all the furniture and I came across an old book in the wine cellar. Published 101 years ago in English by the celebrated Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet is a hippie and cult classic gone mainstream. The jacket is worn, eaten at the edges, with an inscription in cursive from 35 years go.

If you’re new to the TreeHouseLetter, please know that I have a special love for books that have lived. It was not always this way. I find myself captivated by the places a book has traveled, the hands that held it, maybe cherished it. Too sacred to throw away, this copy was likely passed on to a second-sale book dealer or library. I don’t remember where I picked this up, but the pages were crisp and tight, clean as new. The copy was given with love and perhaps never read by the receiver. This edition is in its fifty-ninth printing in 1988.

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The pocket edition of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran with inscription, discovered last week in the wine cellar.

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The prophet’s name, Almustafa, is mentioned once in the opening line and he has spent 12 years on the fictional island, Orphalese. He is returning to the isle of his birth when the locals realize his ship is arriving to take him away. They gather to see him and the local soothsayer, Almitra, asks him: “Now disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death.”

The structure of the prose poem or book that follows is 26 sermons or verses on love, marriage, children, giving, on through to religion and death. The work is just over 100 pages and can be read in one sitting.

The lines spoke to me in this reading after having lived in the world, worked, married, raised children, and attended funerals of family and friends.

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And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun. The Coming of the Ship

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. The Coming of the Ship

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And, I saw on the page a truth about my son who left last Sunday. He packed his car with clothes and bags, his fish tank, his household goods going the week before him. His company mascot in the military was an eagle. And he is gone, alone and without his nest, this eagle. And, the hour of separation for the Prophet who is leaving the island and my son who is leaving home reveals a love which knows not its own depth.

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The Prophet’s words resonated, about work, about the duality in life.

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. On Work

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. On Joy and Sorrow

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I read the chapter On Love and recognized the lines which Mom & Dad wrote in my book To Emily: Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. / Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; / For love is sufficient onto love.

And whether Emily read the pages or not, her mother and father gave their daughter love, a love that is not possessed in any volume or on any page. For love is sufficient onto love. And that is a love I understand more deeply now that my son has left home.

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FOOTNOTES

*Kahlil Gibran. The Prophet, originally published in 1923, is one of the best-selling books of all time with over 100 million copies sold around the world. It has never been out of print.

* BBC News. 12May2012. Shoku Amirani & Stephanie Hegarty. Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet: Why is it so loved?

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