These hands have known nothing but soil, grain and toil.
These hands must learn to be gentle and kind
Despite being of tempered leather, used to wrought and bind.
 
These hands of iron grip must learn to grasp with light touch,
Tethered to a heart lighter still,
Planting this cypress on that old hill,
No longer just the fields to till.
 
Now that old cypress on the older hill,
Seen by him countless times, by which now stands another tree,
One that will never grow.
 
Beneath, a fresh mound moved by hands gentle and kind
Just as when the sapling was sown
For the first time.
 
Two trees.
Two mounds.
All that remains,
One son.