Dirt

Days hollowed out like logs
from trees that once lived

Hollow winds blowing too long
striping away time and creation

All things get caught up in wind

Days have gone
so many gone
like dandelion seeds
fallen on sandy places

I should sit for a time
by the bank of that old pond I once found
deep in a now-forgotten forest
watching the water's surface
watching winds
across that still surface
broken in so many shards
shards of mirrors
wavelet upon wave

I should just listen
close my eyes and rest

I should go
far away from here
where the sun still glances
across tender stalks of grass
that bend and bend and bend
that cast their seeds and die and grow
cast their seeds and grow
flourishing in the rain
sleeping beneath snow

sending shoots skyward
in any weather

The sun is drifting southward everyday
night encroaches on the afternoon

I don't know what I'm after here
these words seem so weakly simple
like the grasses they go on and on

I'm not certain they bear seed
yet they flourish
as long as I'm their root

But is it me or something else
something needing voice
speaking itself into being
I only a furrow to be carved?

Yes I
the soil that must be turned
the soil life works
breaking the substance of me
dividing and subdividing
what I am
root coming from root coming from root
until I am just the sand
every nutrient extracted
until I am the dust
which wind and rain remove.