28 SUMMERS OF URCHINS AND LOVE | ANNE VISSER NEY
ANNE VISSER NEY is a writer,
biologist, and U.S. Coast Guard
veteran. Her work has recently
appeared in Ruminate, the
Fourth River, and Brain, Child,
and has been nominated for
the Pushcart Prize (fiction) and
the Whiting Award (creative
nonfiction). She currently lives
in Saint Petersburg, Florida.i. the prophet
I was twelve or thirteen the summer I discovered Kahlil Gibran’s prose
poetry classic, The Prophet. I was entranced by its lyrical mysticism, and
I lazed away afternoons reading the philosopher’s wisdoms about life
and love. The Prophet stirred my adolescent passions.
For her birthday that year, I made my grandmother a card on which
I pasted a black-and-white photograph of her five grandchildren posed
tallest to shortest. Opposite the snapshot, I neatly printed the prophet’s
words:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
Grandma was a no-nonsense registered nurse, recently retired from
General Motors, where she had spent decades triaging sick, maimed, or
mortally wounded assembly-line workers. I loved her ability to stare life
in the eye without losing her sense of wonder or her love for beauty. I
fancied myself like her. I thought my newfound muse would move her,
too. She scrutinized my creation with twinkling blue eyes.
“Oh, my!” she said and hugged me—she must have been touched by
my naiveté. She placed the message in a gold frame on her shelf, where
it became a touchstone for me as I grew up and learned something about
the words I had so cavalierly taken as my own.ANNE VISSER NEY
Summers of
Urchins and Love