I hold my arms in an arc before me,
And they are the seawalls of Valletta,
Where the waves thunder against me,
But next to my bosom is the still harbor,
And the ships at anchor ride the gentle well.

My children are in four ships,
Their sails billowing and their prows delving,
And from afar I see the Maltese crosses on their blue sails.
They are making for the gap between my fists,
My fists drilled into rock
At the mouth of the harbor,
Right where rough water is tamed.

On the first ship my daughter puts her instruments in order,
And mixes herbs on white sheets of paper,
Then folds them into envelopes.
She writes “For fever” and “For congestion”.
Her husband-to-be I love especially,
For though young he has held back the battering sea,
The tug of the undertow is in our eyes.

On another ship, already reefing its jib,
Is her twin sister,
Counting the sick and drawing up plans for hospitals,
For wounded knights and coughing urchins.

Behind follows a third ship,
The sun balanced on its mast,
My son with his alembics seeks to transmute lead into gold
So that the king may buy his peasants’ wheat
And fill his granaries for lean years.

On the fourth ship my second son,
Returning safe from pirates and corsairs,
Has gathered Greek books on philosophy.
His dreams for a better world flow from his quill
And the young men wait for him in the lecture hall.

My walls encircle my children’s ships
And they dock at my bosom in calm water.
Lichen speckles my stone blocks,
And the sea undermines my foundations,
But my children are in port,
Dancing at their wedding feasts,
And I rejoice at the way the sun mottles the tables,
How it gleams in my daughters’ raven hair,
How it glows on my sons’ olive skin,
How grooms kiss their brides,
And I await grandchildren
As I hold back the sea.

July 10th, 2007