Antaeus / Earth

Antaeus

    When I lie on the ground
    I rise flushed as a rose in the morning.
    In flights I arrange a fall on the ring
    To rub myself with sand

    That is operative
    As an elixir. I cannot be weaned
    Off the earth’s long contour, her river-veins.
    Down here in my cave

    Girdered with root and rock
    I am cradled in the dark that wombed me
    And nurtured in every artery
    Like a small hillock.
    Let each new hero come
    Seeking the golden apples and Atlas.
    He must wrestle with me before pass
    Into that realm of fame

    Among sky-born and royal:
    He may well throw me and renew my birth
    But let him not plan, lifting me off the earth,
    My elevation, my fall.

— Seamus Heaney