When the Earth made you, she flecked your skin with seeds,
Tossing handfuls of black soil all across your shoulders
And sowing in your body the strength to thrive.
Your hair grew like man’s first fire,
Red and thrashing like a fish in the sea,
The sea where, now and then, your mother feeds you the flesh
Of the scorched men whose ships fear your fanned red skies
And find their burial mounds in the deepest sands
          under the flash of your light;
Men who feel your firm black soil again at the doors of your hall
And make themselves full with food and drink
And Hellos to friends so long and fervently missed.