Threads Drawn From Your Heart

Photo taken at Filoli. © Glenn Franco Simmons.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads

drawn from your heart, even as if your

beloved were to wear that cloth.

~ Kahlil Gibran

by Glenn Franco Simmons

Grok is truly amazing. I’ve tried other AI chats, but Grok {Grok (xAI). (2025)}, only in comparison to what I've used, is the best.  

Kahlil Gibran, beloved by many literature-lovers the world over, is one of my favorite authors. The good news is that some of his works are now in the public domain in the United States. This allows for more-extensive creative re-use.  

That said, I encourage readers to purchase his books, if you are interested in some fine literature.   

As for ensuring this quote is in the public domain, I only check because I may use it commercially on some of my art. For citation, whether copyrighted or not, attribution is the ethical choice.  

With that in mind, Grok (edited) said, “This excerpt is in the public domain. It is from the chapter ‘On Work’ in Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet,” first published in 1923. Under U.S. copyright law, works published before 1929 are in the public domain as of Jan. 1, 2025, and this one entered the public domain in the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2019 (95 years after publication). It is also freely available on sites like Project Gutenberg and Wikisource, where it can be reproduced without restriction. In countries following the “life plus 70 years” rule (e.g., EU, Canada), Gibran’s works entered the public domain in 2002, as he died in 1931.” 

If any readers would like to say, how old were you when you first read Mr. Gibran’s works? What was the first book by him that you read? I believe I was about 18 or 19 and it was “The Prophet.”