Man approaches perfection when he feels that he is an infinite space and a sea without 

a shore,  An everlasting fire, an unquenchable light. A calm wind or a raging 

tempest, a thundering sky or a rainy heaven, A singing brook or a wailing rivulet, a 

tree abloom in spring, or a naked sapling in Autumn,  A rising mountain or a 

descending alley, a fertile plain or a dessert. 

When man feels all of these, he has already reached halfway to perfection.  

To attain his goal he must then percieve that he is a child dependent upon his mother, 

a father responsible for his family, A youth lost in love ,  An ancient wrestling 

against his past, A worshipper in his temple, A   criminal in his prison,  A scholar 

amidst his parchments, An ignorant soul stumbling between the   darkness of his 

night and the obscurity of his day,  A nun suffering between the flowers of her faith 

and the thistles of her lonliness,  A prostitute caught between the fangs of her 

weakness and the claws  of her  needs,  A poor man trapped between the bitterness and 

his submission, A rich man   between his greed and his conscience,  a poet between the 

mist of his twilight and the rays if his dawn.

Who can experience, see, and understand these things can reach perfection and become 

a shadow or Gods Shadow. 

KAHLIL GIBRAN ... beautiful.. a poem of the day..