My Farewell

I have composed the following as a sort of open letter to my ex husband. After three days of constant consternation over the way in which our relationship dissolved after four years I felt it necessary to process some of these thoughts and gain some closure. Most of the content of "My Farewell" is taken from "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran, although the associations, order, and some language has been changed to better fit my personal circumstances. This is not intended to be published, nor is it intended to be anything other than a personal statement which pays homage to the work of a man who had a mastery of language I can only hope to aspire to.

The words here are not meant to cause offense, but are simply my use of beautiful poetry and imagery to convey the conflicting and cutting emotions I have dealt with recently.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy,

Caleb J. Creel

My Farewell
Caleb J. Creel

//Adapted from Khalil Gibran’s\\
~~~“The Prophet”~~~

“Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. Forget not that I shall come back to you.

It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You sang to me in my aloneness, and I built of your longings a tower in the sky. Was it not through a dream which neither of us remember having dreamt that we created our world and fashioned all there is in it? Was it not our breath that erected and hardened the structure of our home?

This I would have you remember when remembering me: Could we but see the tides of that breath we could cease to see all else, and if we could hear the whispers of our dreams then we would hear no other sound. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over. It is no longer dawn, and the noontime is upon us. Our half-waking has turned to bright day and we must part. I tell you this, and yet you neither see, nor do you hear for the timeless in you is aware of the timelessness of life and knows that yesterday is but the memory of today – and that tomorrow is today's dream. Let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing. It is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it – and the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. Then shall you see and then shall you hear.

It is when your spirit goes wandering in judgment and self imagined righteousness upon the wind that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and, therefore, unto yourself. If you would bring to judgment your unfaithful spouse, let you also weight your heart in scales and measure your soul with measurements. And you who would be just, what judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh is yet a thief in spirit? What penalty do you lay upon him who slays in the flesh, yet is himself slain in the spirit? And how would you prosecute he who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor, yet who is also aggrieved and outraged? How shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds? Is not remorse the justice administered by the law? Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent, nor can you lift it from the heart of the guilty.

You are good when you are one with yourself, yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil. You are good when you strive to give of yourself, yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. When you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast – surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever-giving of your abundance," for giving is as much a need to the fruit as receiving is to the root. You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps, yet you are not evil were you to pursue that same goal with a limp – even those who limp go not backward! You are good in countless ways – and you are not evil when you are not good, you are merely loitering and sluggardly. In your longing for your larger self lies your goodness – and that longing is within you.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or rudder are broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason ruling alone is a force confining. Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion that it may sing – and let it direct your passion with reason that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection and, like the phoenix, rise above its own ashes.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break that its heart may stand in the sun, so too must you know pain. Accept the seasons of your heart as you have those that pass over the fields, and watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility, for his hand though heavy and hard is guided by the tender hand of God. Could you but keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracle of your life, your pain would not seem any less wondrous than your joy.

And how else can it be? Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The selfsame well from which your laughter arises was oftentimes filled with your tears, and the deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart and you shall see that, in truth, you are weeping for that which has sometimes been your delight. Some say, "Joy is greater than sorrow." Others say, "Sorrow is the greater." But I say that they are, in fact, inseparable: together they come and, when one sits alone with you at your table, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. You are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy – only when you are empty are you balanced.

When Love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when Love speaks to you, believe in him, though the voice of Love may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as Love crowns you, so shall he crucify you. Like sheaves of corn Love gathers you unto himself and threshes you to make you naked, sifts you to free you from your husk, and grinds you to whiteness. He then kneads you until you are pliant, and assigns you to Love’s sacred fire that you may become the sacred bread for God's feast. All these things Love shall do unto you in order that you may know the secrets of your heart and, in that knowledge, become a fragment of Life's heart.

But, if in your fear you would seek only Love's peace and Love's pleasure, then it is better that you cover up your nakedness and pass out of Love's threshing-floor into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all your laughter, and you will weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but of itself, and takes naught but from itself. Love neither possesses, nor would Love be possessed – for Love is sufficient unto Love.

For this I bless you most: you give much and know not that you give at all. Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, and a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse. What was given us here we shall keep, and if it suffices not, then again must we come together and, together, stretch our hands unto the giver.

Pleasure is a freedom-song. Remember pleasure with gratitude as if they were the harvest of a summer. It is the blossoming of your desires, but it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, but it is neither The Deep nor The High, it is the caged taking wing! Some of youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. Elders remember pleasure with regret, like wrongs committed in drunkenness. Regret, though, is the beclouding of the mind – not its chastisement. And yet, if you find comfort in regretting, then allow yourself to be comforted.

There are those who are neither too young to seek nor too old to remember who, in their fear of seeking and remembering, shun all pleasures lest they neglect the Lord or offend against Him. And yet, even in this self denial they find their pleasure. Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. Who knows – that which seems denied today, could simply lie in wait for tomorrow. Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. Who is he that can offend the Lord? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night? The firefly the stars? Shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think you that the peace of the Lord is a calm pool which you can trouble with a simple staff?

The wind bid me leave you – and as hasty was I as the wind in going. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day – and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel... And so too do we wanderers pass as well into and out of the lives of those with whom we have shared joy and love. Should my voice fade in your ears and my love vanish in your memory, then – be assured – I will come again... You gave to me much and knew not that you gave at all. For this I bless you most.

This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily closes upon its own self until tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep – and if it suffices not, then again must we come together and, together, stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in that dream where you sang to me in my aloneness and I built for you your tower in the sky from your longings. Sleep has fled, and with it our dream. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more then again shall we speak together, you shall sing to me a deeper song, I shall build once again that tower of longings, and we shall dream once more our dream."