Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran (51 page)

Yesterday we tore down the temples of our souls and from their debris we built tombs for our forefathers. But today our souls have turned into sacred altars that the ghosts of the Past cannot approach, that the fleshless fingers of the dead cannot touch.

We were a silent thought hidden in the corners of Oblivion. Today we are a strong voice that can make the firmament reverberate.

We were a tiny spark buried under the ashes. Today we are a raging fire burning at the head of the valley.

We spent many a night awake, with the earth as our pillow and the snow as our blanket.

Like sheep without a shepherd we flocked together many nights grazing on our thoughts, and chewing the cud of our emotions; yet we remained hungry and athirst.

Oftentime we stood between a passing day and a coming night lamenting our withering youth and longing for someone unknown, and gazing at the void and dark sky listening to the moaning of Silence and the shrieking of nothingness.

Those ages passed like wolves among the graves. But today the skies are clear, and we can rest peacefully upon divine beds and welcome our thoughts and dreams, and embrace our desires. Grasping with untrembling fingers the torches that sway around us, we can talk to the genii with explicit meaning. As the choirs of angels pass us, they become intoxicated with the longing of our hearts and the hymns of our souls.

Yesterday we were, and today we are! This is the will of the goddess among the sons of the goddess. What is your will, oh sons of the monkeys? Have you walked a single step forward since you came forth from the crevices of the earth? Have you gazed toward heaven since Satan opened your eyes? Have you uttered a word from the book of Right since the lips of vipers kissed your lips? Or have you listened a moment to the song of Life since Death closed your ears?

Seventy thousand years ago I passed by and saw you moving like insects inside the caves; and seven minutes ago I glanced at you through the crystal glass of my window and saw you walking through the alleys fettered by slavery while the wings of Death hovered over you. You look the same today as you looked yesterday; and tomorrow, and the day after it, you shall look as I saw you in the beginning.

Yesterday we were, and today we are! This is the will of the goddess among the sons of the goddess; what is your will, oh sons of the monkeys?

Decayed Teeth

I had a decayed tooth in my mouth that troubled me. It stayed dormant during the day. But in the tranquility of the night, when the dentists were asleep and drug stores closed, it began to ache.

One day, as I grew impatient, I went to the dentist and told him to extract that damned tooth that dealt me misery and denied me the joy of slumber by converting the silence of my night into moaning and uproar.

The dentist shook his head and said, “It is foolish to have your tooth extracted if we can cure it.”

Then he started to drill its sides and clean its cavities and used every means to restore it and free it from decay. Having finished drilling, he filled it with pure gold and said boastfully, “Your bad tooth now is stronger and more solid than your good ones.” I believed him and paid him and departed from the place.

But before the week was over, the cursed tooth returned to its diseased condition and the torture it inflicted converted the beautiful songs of my soul into wailing and agony.

So I went to another dentist and said to him, “Extract this damned tooth without asking me any question, for the person who receives the blows is not like the one who counts them.”

Obeying my command, he extracted the tooth. Looking at it he said, “You have done well to have this rotten tooth extracted.”

In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no efforts to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings. Many are the dentists who treat the decayed teeth of Society with glittering gold.

Numerous are those who yield to the enticements of such reformers, and pain, sickness, and death are their lot.

In the mouth of the Syrian nation are many rotten, black, and dirty teeth that fester and stink. The doctors have attempted cures with gold fillings instead of extraction. And the disease remains.

A nation with rotten teeth is doomed to have a sick stomach. Many are the nations afflicted with such indigestion.

If you wish to take a look at the decayed teeth of Syria, visit its schools where the sons and daughters of today are preparing to become the men and women of tomorrow.

Visit the courts and witness the acts of the crooked and corrupted purveyors of justice. See how they play with the thoughts and minds of the simple people as a cat plays with a mouse.

Visit the homes of the rich where conceit, falsehood, and hypocrisy reign.

But don't neglect to go through the huts of the poor as well, where dwell fear, ignorance, and cowardice.

Then visit the nimble-fingered dentists, possessors of delicate instruments, dental plasters and tranquilizers, who spend their days filling the cavities in the rotten teeth of the nation to mask the decay.

Talk to those reformers who pose as the intelligentsia of the Syrian nation and organize societies, hold conferences, and deliver public speeches. When you talk to them you will hear tunes that perhaps sound more sublime than the grinding of a millstone, and nobler than the croaking of frogs on a June night.

When you tell them the Syrian nation gnaws its bread with decayed teeth and each morsel it chews is mixed with poisoned saliva that spreads diseases in the nation's stomach, they answer, “Yes, but we are seeking better tooth fillings and tranquilizers.”

And if you suggest “extraction” to them, they will laugh at you because you have not yet learned the noble art of dentistry that conceals disease.

If you were to insist, they would go off and shun you, saying to themselves:

“Many are the idealists in this world, and weak are their dreams.”

Mister Gabber

I am bored with gabbers and their gab; my soul abhors them.

When I wake up in the morning to peruse the letters and magazines placed by my bedside, I find them full of gab; all I see is loose talk empty of meaning but stuffed with hypocrisy.

When I sit by the window to lower the veil of slumber from my eyes and sip my Turkish coffee, Mister Gabber appears before me, hopping, crying, and grumbling. He condescends to sip my coffee and smoke my cigarettes.

When I go to work Mister Gabber follows, whispering in my ears and tickling my sensitive brain. When I try to get rid of him he giggles and is soon midstream again, in his flood of meaningless talk.

When I go to the market, Mister Gabber stands at the door of every shop passing judgment on people. I see him even upon the faces of the silent for he accompanies them too. They are unaware of his presence, yet he disturbs them.

If I sit down with a friend Mister Gabber, uninvited, makes a third. If I elude him, he manages to remain so close that the echo of his voice irritates me and upsets my stomach like spoiled meat.

When I visit the courts and the institutions of learning, I find him and his father and mother dressing Falsehood in silky garments and Hypocrisy in a magnificent cloak and a beautiful turban.

When I call at factory offices, there too, to my surprise, I find Mister Gabber, in the midst of his mother, aunt, and grandfather chattering and flapping his thick lips. And his kinfolks applaud him and mock me.

On my visit to the temples and other places of worship, there he is, seated on a throne, his head crowned and a gleaming sceptre in his hand.

Returning home at eventide, I find him there, too. From the ceiling he hangs like a snake; or crawls like a boa in the four corners of my house.

In short, Mister Gabber is found everywhere; within and beyond the skies, on land and underground, on the wings of the ether and upon the waves of the sea, in the forests, in the caves, and on the mountaintops.

Where can a lover of silence and tranquility find rest from him? Will God ever have mercy on my soul and grant me the grace of dumbness so I may reside in the paradise of Silence?

Is there in this universe a nook where I can go and live happily by myself?

Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk?

Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking?

Is there any person among all persons whose mouth is not a hiding place for the knavish Mister Gabber?

If there were but one kind of gabber, I would be resigned. But gabbers are innumerable. They can be divided into clans and tribes:

There are those who live in marshes all day long, but when night comes, they move to the banks and raise their heads out of the water and the slime, and fill the silent night with horrible croaking that bursts the eardrums.

There are those who belong to the family of gnats. It is they who hover around our heads and make tiny devilish noises out of spite and hatred.

There is the clan whose members swill brandy and beer and stand at the street corners and fill the ether with a bellowing thicker than a buffalo's wallow.

We see also a queer tribe of people who pass their time at the tombs of Life converting silence into a sort of wailing more lugubrious than the screeching of the owl.

Then there is the gang of gabbers who imagine life as a piece of lumber from which they try to shape something for themselves, raising as they do so, a screeching sound uglier than the din of a sawmill.

Following this gang is a denomination of creatures who pound themselves with mallets to produce hollow tones more awful than the tomtoms of jungle savages.

Supporting these creatures is a sect whose members have nothing to do save to sit down, whenever a seat is available, and there chew words instead of uttering them.

Once in a while we find a party of gabbers who weave air from air, but remain without a garment.

Oftentime we run across a unique order of gabbers whose representatives are like starlings but deem themselves eagles when they soar in the currents of their words.