Digging Down, Way Down

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You ask for a song in praise, and so I look up

to the sky over the mud cylinder I have

dug myself into, and find gratitude for damp earth

and light, for the expansion of ribs when I inhale.

 

I touch the sides.  They weep, but my eyes are dry.  We

take turns, it seems, as we learn each other’s rhythms,

Earth and I.  We row our boats along the root rivers of trees,

drink at dark pockets of nutrient-restoring compost, and spit.

 

I am grateful to see this life within the abused soil, grateful

to be part of it when alive, before I am burned and buried,

before I am bound to stay six feet down and to join it wholly

and absolutely.  Now I know Earth breathes and wants me.

  My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2019 Susan L. Chast