Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EARTH CHILD, by LOIS LORING


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EARTH CHILD, by                    
First Line: I love you, earth
Last Line: I am, indeed, your child!
Subject(s): Earth; World


I love you, Earth.
I love your hardness where I have thrown myself in anguish,
and pounded your brown indifference with tightened fists
until opaque waves of exhaustion swept over me...
yet have come away stronger.
I have raised pale arms to your dawns,
and cursed their beauty
when my hollow stomach clawed with hunger,
but could not shut my eyes to them.
I have felt the virgin coldness of your snows
on my fingers and in my heart,
and have known that both would melt
to the passionate energy of your need.
I have walked through nights
too weary for rest ...
praying for your heaviness over me,
and the blankets of blackness
thrown in endless circles around me
smothered the fears that tore at my temples.
I have lazed in willow lassitude
in your summer sunshine,
and bet with you on which flower the bee would sup.
I have raced over your roundness
and defied your wind to catch me,
and sprawled in tired happiness
on your yellow apron of buttercups.
I have envied you your pagan Autumn
with its scarlet defiance
that pierced my heart like a painted arrow.
I have stood with reverence
by the white dignity of a frozen brook;
I have wept with your bursting sentiment of Spring;
but always, always I have exulted in your inevitable changing.
I love your smell
that has made me an alien to the sea.
I revel in the violent fury of your storms
when you tear protesting trees from your own breast,
and thunder at your self-infliction.
I have felt you in me,
and recognized myself in you.
Cruel, passionate, merciful Earth,
I am, indeed, your child!





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