~My Soul has taken me to Task ~

My Soul has taken me to task
and taught me to love
what others reject
and to treat  as a friend
the one  whom they insult.
And it has revealed to me
that the power of love
is not within the lover
but in the beloved

And before my soul took me to task,
love within me
was a slender thread
stretched between two stakes
placed close together.

But now it has been transformed
into a halo
whose beginning and end
are one,
encircling all that exists,
extending slowly
to embrace everything
that will ever exist

My Soul has taken me to task
and taught me to see beauty
beyond shape, colour and skin,
and to contemplate things
that people call hideous
until they appear pleasing to me

And before my Soul took me to task,
I saw beauty in flames flickering
inside columns of smoke.
But today the smoke has dispersed
and now I see only the fire

My Soul has taken me to task
and taught me to listen
to voices that come neither
from tongues nor from throats

And before my Soul took me to task
I was hard of hearing;
I heard only tumult and uproar
But now I am all ears.
listening to the silence and its choirs
singing the hymns of time,
intoning the praises of the firmament,
revealing the secrets of the invisible.

My Soul has taken me to task
and taught me not to measure time
by the yardstick
of yesterday or tomorrow

And before my Soul took me to task
I believed that the past
was a time to which
I could not return
and the future a time
I could not reach.

But today I know that the present moment
embraces the whole of time, 
along with all it contains of
aspirations,  actions and achievements.

My Soul has taken me to task
and has taught me that
the lantern  I carry
does not belong to me
and that the song I sing
does not come  from my heart.

So although I walk in the light
I am not the Light,
and although I am a well tuned lute
I am not the Lute Player

My Soul has taken me to task
my brother/sister and it has taught me much
and your Soul has lectured you
and taught you just as much

~Kahlil Gibran ~Visons of the Prophet ~

~We shall be known by the tracks we leave behind ~