Sacred Soil

Lebanon is a sweet tale, beyond the seas; a house the sun looks in upon... and shepherds in the valleys, filling the winding paths with melodies and colors.

... And yesterday the waves carried to me something — I swear by it — dearer than money and children, and very nearly dearer than my oath.

... A man of my village, whom life has carried far away, a stranger, his branches now rooted there, generation after generation; long has it been since he knew the church of the quarter and the oaks of the monastery...

... A man of my village, the trunk of an old, steadfast Lebanese oak, who built for his mother and his father, here among us, a tomb of marble in which he himself will never sleep. This man asks me three things:

... The old church oak by Our Lady's — how is it?? Have its roots dried up? Has the worm crept into it? Plant another, this man of my village tells me...

And a few grains of soil, from their place, from the vineyard, to pillow his head upon — upon the foreign soil... And from Lebanon, a small ribbon bearing the colors of the new flag, to lay upon his breast...

I have believed in the soil — how abundant its bounty, how fierce the human heart's tenderness toward it.

I have believed in you, O soil of my homeland. Here men deny you, while a man of my village asks me for a grain of you in which to plant his heart.

And you, old man, you ancient Lebanese, you stranger longing for the soil of his homeland: at your service, at your service! Tomorrow, with the wave, there shall reach you a green leaf from the church oak, a grain of soil from the vineyard, and a flag from Lebanon, red...