Sand and foam

I am forever walking upon these shores,


Betwixt the sand and the foam,


The high tide will erase my foot-prints,


And the wind will blow away the foam.


But the sea and the shore will remain


Forever.


Once I filled my hand with mist.


Then I opened it and lo, the mist was a worm.


And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.


And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.


And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.


But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.


It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.


Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.


They say to me in their awakening, “You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea.”


And in my dream I say to them, “I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore.”


Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, “Who are you?”


–Kahlil Gibran