The Claim of Man

I am the man which claims this earth as mine.

The earth which nourishes and satisfies my every need. The hard earth which holds my feet. I claim this earth as mine.

You yielded me in the grasslands of Africa a billion years ago; you caressed me with your gentle hands and wind as I moved across your face into the known world.You guided me through treacherous waterways as I waddled into the new world. So earth I claim you.

How can a son not claim his mother?

Claim his mother as his own?

Claim her and nourish her and make her as part of his own?

O poor earth, I claim you.

I claimed you as a child  the past billion years and you as a loving mother stood silently by as I tore your face and created those ungodly inventions which made me a boy into a man and the most dominant among your children

I claimed your fruits and I wanted more. I claimed your other children as mine and made them our own. But Earth, O loving mother, you just stood silently and provided me the pathway to become a man

I am a man now. No longer a child. The follies of my youth haunt me in my sleep and in my life. But earth, you were the ever-present mother and cuddled me in my sleep through my vagaries of youth.

But I am a man now; with a responsibility to set right my follies of youth. And thus I claim you my mother earth.I claim you as my own. I promise to nurture and care for you as I grow to become the man you want me to be