Desert river's cypress leaves

In childhood's swaying cradle

Childhood River

Untamed flood

Though mingled with the sea of age

Into which it withdraws

And of which it descends

Letter and sign is the name

For all name is letter and sign

An ornament on thought's green soil

Everything through your spirit

And nothing without you

A mark of protection

Adorning your earth-coloured face

Time dives into your river

And the ages ascend

One by one

The world's peoples

Left their mark on this earth

Song by song

Have they chanted their quest

Dancing in the trance of their yearning

Did my fathers travel and abandon this earth

To child after child did my mothers give birth

When all of them have spoken

Shall my own word, too

Be heard

My voice, sound of a rain drum

A fire manifest

Shall touch earth's womb and whisper

In tongues of flame to her

Tongues to caress her water

Tongues to absorb her salt

And tongues

To be

Absorbed by her hunger

And disintegrate

In the fever

Of her searching dark hand

Till all of me

Is fruit

This earth of mine

Shall answer

Earth in her bridal joy

The wedding and

The feast

Earth heavily sighing

Under the hand of oppression

My earth that kills her children

Whose blood my hands have shed

My earth that sings and cries

My earth of tenderness

My earth of insurrection

My earth that talks to me

My childhood's river

O fertile fruit of her months

My birth mark you,

Her scar

This earth of mine shall answer

Earth in birth's agony

This earth shall bear your laugher

Your first step and your last

And bath you in her river

To make your soul bird rise

This earth shall call to prayer

And first pronounce your name

Your mark, too, shall adorn her

As my heart's sweetest flame

Earth shall encounter heaven

And earth shall testify

To your smile

That I

Proclaim

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2000 - 2005

(Time out.)