The Big 01

Charlie turns one year old today! I've been thinking for a while about what kind of post I'd write to commemorate the occasion. I thought about a long narrative detailing his arrival into the world; I thought about a picture slideshow set to music; I even thought of writing everything I've learned over the past year, the ups and the downs. But my decision was made late one night last week when a friend (thanks Anita!) showed me a site she'd found called Wordle that creates word clouds with text that you enter. What a great way to communicate a concept when sentences and paragraphs just won't do the trick. So this is my little graphic poem for Charlie on the occasion of his birthday. I hope that when he looks back and sees it, he understands just how much richer he's made our world by being in it. Happy Birthday, Boy!




On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.