Sweet little babe so tender and mild,
Treasured and loved as any other child.
Your mother’s heart quickens to your cry
As on the hot pile of sand you lie.
She rocks you in her labour-weary arms,
And chants ditties to ward off evil charms.
Her glazed eyes glow with distant hopes awhile,
Each time yours crinkle in an innocent smile.

She dares to dream big dreams, this bold dreamer,
Undaunted, the aspiration of a construction worker.
In her audacious reveries your mother builds
A grand new sphere that for you she gilds
With trust and hope and sincere belief:
Some day my beloved, you’ll turn the leaf
And actualize for me a more dignified life
Than the one of a drudge’s hapless wife.

“Forge your own fate my precious one,” she sings
“You are born for far more momentous things!
Not for you sand and cement, mortar and bricks,
Leave them behind for spineless hicks.”
Of Jonathan Seagull she has not heard,
But her child she vows will be a free bird,
To realize her vision as the years unfold,
To command the skies, to glean treasures untold.