Each generation discovers anew the poetry and the wisdom of the Prophet, as he addresses twenty seven topics of our daily lives, such as this one, on houses: "I wish I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadows. I wish the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. And tell me, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you beauty? For beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. Or have you only comfort, and lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes the host, and then a master? And though of magnificence and splendor, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night."
