Beyond My Solitude | Khalil Gibran Poem

Here's a wonderful parable by the great Khalil Gibran on solitude, taken from The Forerunner (His Parables and Poems). In this multi-layered parable, Gibran contemplates solitude concerning self-realization and the obstacles one faces on the path to self-liberation.

You can just enjoy this wonderful writing or meditate on these profound words on solitude and find strength, solace, and wisdom. And that it may deepen your insight.

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and visual artist in the Sufi/Christian mystic tradition

Photo by Klemen Vrankar.

Transcript

Beyond my solitude is another solitude.

And to him who dwells therein,

My aloneness is a crowded marketplace,

And my silence a confusion of sounds.

Too young am I,

And too restless to seek that above solitude.

The voices of yonder valley still hold my ears,

And its shadows bar my way,

And I cannot go.

Beyond these hills is a grove of enchantment,

And to him who dwells therein,

My peace is but a whirlwind,

And my enchantment an illusion.

Too young am I,

And too riotous to seek that sacred grove.

The taste of blood is clinging in my mouth,

And the bow and the arrows of my father's yet linger in my hand,

And I cannot go.

Beyond this burdened self lives my freer self,

And to him my dreams are a battle fought in twilight,

And my desires the rattling of bones.

Too young am I,

And too outraged to be my freer self.

And how shall I become my freer self,

Unless I slay my burdened selves,

Or unless all men become free?

How shall my leaves fly singing upon the wind,

Unless my roots shall wither in the dark?

How shall the eagle in me soar against the sun,

Until my fledglings leave the nest which I with my own beak have built for them?