Reason and Passion XV 
by Kahlil Gibran

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your 
judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the 
discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the 
lovers of all your elements? 
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring 
soul.
If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else 
be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a 
flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may 
sing; 
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through
its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

Standstill in Mid-Seas
by Carmen H Gray

I have drifted
For a while in the doldrums
After a rough capsize
It was a vital place
To rest in the still, cool waters
The monotony of languidness
A refuge in its own right
Until the white cap of movement 
Emerges in the distance
Awakening me from
A standstill in Mid-Seas