It’s Like A Paradise When You Take Me In Your Bosom

Oh, it is like a paradise when you take me in your bosom as a mother lovingly takes her child. It gives liveliness to me and a whole new meaning to my life, and to those who either lie dormant on your lap or run freely in the wild. You have so many shades – blue, yellow, green, and red. It is as if every shade is inside you and you are inside every shade. Oftentimes, you are surrounded by cotton candy clouds. They speak to you in voices, sometimes soft and sometimes loud. Birds sing merrily upon branches night and day of your sacrifices and glory. But sometimes there are some anecdotes, while other times short stories. Even the winds compose ballads in you glorious name; as if these were done to add to your growing fame. The seas, feeling left behind, run amok, while you embrace them in your arms. With this you soothe their spirits that have been tormented, as you are the deity of calm. Your naive daughters, the rivers, flourish amongst your backdrop. While you like a careful onlooker – and a caring mother – see to them from base to top. Around the days when your children feel lonely, you come and sing lullabies to them lovingly. Whenever there have been harsh times, they all have looked upon you with eager eyes. There you are, they can either see, or else feel, amongst everything that lies.

As for me, you are everything; and I cannot sing to you or to your glory. But I can speak. Please listen: Oh, dear mother earth, you are a world of me and a world for me. Your plentiful bounties are but food, water, and shelter to me. How lovingly you have borne me, nurtured me, sheltered me and protected me. How generously you have given me your all, while I being your ignorant child, have always taken everything for granted. Oh how selfish of me that I failed to see your love that was never requited. And how you never let it show on your face but keep smiling that I may not feel guilty. I have been a fool to chase after fruitless things. I have been miserable for things that I could not buy, even when I have been greedy to amass vain riches. But did I forget, “The best things in life are free.” Your stole, this sky, which covers us all and shelters us – who can buy it? Your silent whispers, these winds, which are the very reason for our sustenance – who can amass them? Your tears, these rivers, which quench our thirsts and constantly fill in us – who can encompass them? Your carings and blessings, these mountains, plains, and forests, which protect us and feed us – who can appraise them? Who will determine what diamonds may buy your love? Who will say of what they may give you – the all giver, or else pay your unpayable debts? I say no one. And I thank you and bow down to you, my dear mother earth.