Poem by Kahlil Gibran

Highly evocative characterization by Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, who, in speaking of parents and children, captured the special sense of responsibility without possessiveness felt by leaders toward their vision ...

Your children are not your children.

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

They come through you, not from you,

And though they are with you, 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 strive 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 the arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves the bow that is stable.