She Is My Mother

You are my mother before ever I knew my mother —
so call me to your breast, and hold me close,
and let your morning brightness kiss me,
laughing-lidded, weeping,
upon the necks of your hills:
one who wrests his bread from the proud rugged wild,
who dives into the heart of the deaf rock,
pledged, so long as I live, to supply my nation from my mother's bounty.

There glimmers to me from the depths of your soil
a deep sea, whence come your raiment and your jewels.
Wrap me close upon my right hand,
give me to drink the water of my brow —
you are my world and my faith.
Never has my brow bent to any but you;
in the soil its dew has prayed to your dew:
a hermit — my censer the sun, my holy places your hills.

What is the hand of the sun, and what the bounty of the ocean?
Of all the mothers of the universe, the most generous is mine.
Her offspring down the ages
are messengers of faith and light,
and on the shore of Tyre
she stood against a glowering tyrant,
guiding the universe, showing the way to every mother.
I shall call her by her title, in reverence — I shall not name her:
she is the mother of the gracious oasis and the towering peak.
She is my mother.