ON CHILDREN

lyrics adapted from On Children in The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran,

music by Ysaye M. Barnwell (c)1981

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and the daughters of \life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but

They are not from you, and though they are with you ,

they belong not to you.

You can give them your love, but not your thoughts.

They have their own thoughts

You can give house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You can strive to be like them but you can not make them just like you.