She lays open the breast to the sea
And crouches low enough to ward off the winds,
Her brows impose the wisdom of the time
Harder than the jutting rocks, yet gentle
As the blue of the sky that crowns.

She breeds the warriors from her bosom
As caretakers of the integral bind,
Somewhere a heart throbs below the green
Warms the veins, and roots stretch deeper
To the rhythms of life.

Silence is snarled in the weir of trees
Like a cicada in the dead of night,
And pricks the conscience or soothes the heart,
And when a native rests his ears against the ground
The sigh of the universe, primordial and basic,
Flows as ether, forceful and sentimental.
What tears that are shed only serve
To strengthen her stalks, limbs and cleanse
The smoke from the brown of the flesh.

And seeing her is an inspired poetry
For soldiers who only wanted wives and homes
And wished neither to kill nor
To be killed.

- Isnani