Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise

There is a bird of paradise, Huma,
that comes close to Earth, 
but never touches the ground.

Sometimes it so nears 
one has a chance to leap up and touch it. 

Those who have received its blessing,
from knowing its body firsthand,
all have something in common: 
Their minds are not weighted down. 

       On August 7, 1914 Gibran concluded his letter: "Now I am going to reread your last letter. It was full of voices and wings. Two kisses for your blessed hands and two for your bright eyes, your Kahlil". In her follow-up letter Mary spoke of wings in a different sense. I've noticed that poets and the poetically inclined often speak of wings, birds, or soaring in some sense at least once.
      The August 16, 1914 letter said: "Sometimes I feel as if I had little sturdy wings and you great sweeping ones, and that often when you open yours and I lay my little ones to them, I know their whole mightiness as we fly. And we fly to so many places I could not reach alone; and my heart fills every feather of your great wings, and goes out with your heart to God. With you, so much has come to me! You know how the sun is not just his fireball, but all his light and heat and how the flower is not petals only, but its fragrance too. So You and Your whole scope have more fused in me - and as on earth I am "in the sun", so here I am with you - am anywhere with you - more actually than before."
     Isn't that what love is? - "we fly to so many place I could not reach alone".

I Want To Hold Your Hand (1964), The Beatles

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