Mitera - Mother of Trees.
Immense and crooked
unbent and twisted
in a grove which hums old hymns
there stands an olive tree –
majestic, wide-hipped, crowned with
sun-kissed braids
that shimmer like a grandmother’s wisdom
caught in morning light.
They call her ancient,
but I call her woman –
because she holds centuries the way
women hold families:
in her bark, in her breath,
in the quiet hush between storms.
Her roots dig deep
deeper than empire,
deeper than the steel-toed boots of men
who march with flags that forget
the softness of the soil.
She sinks herself into the Earth
like a promise:
You will not move me.
Not today, not tomorrow
not when the cannons groan,
not when the laws shift like sand,
not when the world pretends not to hear
the cracking of its own heart.
She leans into the wind
the way a lover leans into a blessed body –
trusting, swaying, never breaking,
teaching us that resilience
is not hardening,
but becoming more tender than fear
and still standing.
And when she fruits,
she gives like a revolution,
like a mother pressing hope
into the open palms of her children
small sweet offerings
that say:
Take this oil, my love,
anoint your tired feet,
nourish yourself and beloveds,
remember where you come from.
Remember who you come from.
Because her roots know stories
older than any border drawn in blood,
older than any war that ever tried
to erase her silhouette against the dusk.
Her roots whisper:
systems are brief.
Love is the long memory.
Faith is the stubborn pulse
that grows underground
while no one is watching.
And I sit beneath her,
my back against her ribcage,
and I swear she breathes –
slow, swinging, like gospel,
warm, like a caring hand over mine –
and she teaches me
to dig deeper,
to love louder,
to rise softer but stronger,
to become a living testament
that the Earth carries us
when the world forgets to.
MITERA
Majestic olive woman,
island Mother,
revolution in green –
you remind me
that we are all seeded
with forever,
and the roots of our becoming
reach further than any war,
any sorrow,
any system built to break us.
We grow anyway.
We love anyway.
We bear children anyway.
We stand anyway.
And that –
that is our victory.
That is your offering.