Solitude

Steve Eason

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.

Solitude is a silent storm 

that breaks down all our dead branches. 

Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the 

living heart of the living earth.

The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom 

and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

A traveler am I and a navigator 

and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

A hermit is one who renounces 

the world of fragments that he may enjoy 

the world wholly and without interruption.

Khalil Gibran

in, Sand and Foam, A Book of Aphorisms