Dirt, beautiful dirt.An online acquaintance asked, rhetorically, perhaps, at the foot of his recent blog post if there was any subject unsuitable for poetry. I allowed as how I thought we could write poetry (in one form or another) about anything we wanted.
Of course, after I left that comment, I started thinking more carefully about his question, and wondered if, once again, I had shot off my mouth too soon.
No, I decided; I stand by that assertion...with this modification: not saying the poem will be good verse, only that it will be verse. Then I set myself the challenge to write about a subject one might not normally think of as versifiable (if that is a word.) So, here you are:
Dirt
I carry with me
Memories of all the dirt
I have touched – or that
Has touched me –
In my sojourn on this Earth.
The sandy dirt
Near the Roanoke River,
Which runs past the town
Where I was born.
The gumbo of Arkansas,
Louisiana and Texas – fine
Silty soil that bakes brick hard
In the summer sun,
Makes perfect clods for chunkin'
But locks you in its sticky embrace
When wet –
Leaving a gooey barefoot
Trail ‘cross Mama’s pristine
Freshly-mopped floor.
Sweet-smelling leafy loam from
Delaware to Ohio. Sour mud-dirt
Along the bend of Horseshoe Lake,
Across the Mississippi from
West Memphis.
The dirt I treasure most,
The dirt I am loathe to depart,
The dirt I will take with me when I go
Is the dirt in my backyard.
Undisturbed for almost a hundred
Years, graced over time with tons of leaves
And the tilling of millions of worms,
My dirt is home, my connection
To Pennsylvania and to all
Those I'll leave behind.
I will carry it with me
To every town I visit when I leave here:
An olfactory, tactile reminder of home,
A touchstone when I am afraid
And lonely, or have lost my way.
It will go into the ground with me
When I die, adding to the dirt
In Menallen Friends Cemetery.
I am made of dirt,
The good soils of America
And of Ireland and Scotland before,
Of Africa long before that.
I love dirt.
Of course, after I left that comment, I started thinking more carefully about his question, and wondered if, once again, I had shot off my mouth too soon.
No, I decided; I stand by that assertion...with this modification: not saying the poem will be good verse, only that it will be verse. Then I set myself the challenge to write about a subject one might not normally think of as versifiable (if that is a word.) So, here you are:
Dirt
I carry with me
Memories of all the dirt
I have touched – or that
Has touched me –
In my sojourn on this Earth.
The sandy dirt
Near the Roanoke River,
Which runs past the town
Where I was born.
The gumbo of Arkansas,
Louisiana and Texas – fine
Silty soil that bakes brick hard
In the summer sun,
Makes perfect clods for chunkin'
But locks you in its sticky embrace
When wet –
Leaving a gooey barefoot
Trail ‘cross Mama’s pristine
Freshly-mopped floor.
Sweet-smelling leafy loam from
Delaware to Ohio. Sour mud-dirt
Along the bend of Horseshoe Lake,
Across the Mississippi from
West Memphis.
The dirt I treasure most,
The dirt I am loathe to depart,
The dirt I will take with me when I go
Is the dirt in my backyard.
Undisturbed for almost a hundred
Years, graced over time with tons of leaves
And the tilling of millions of worms,
My dirt is home, my connection
To Pennsylvania and to all
Those I'll leave behind.
I will carry it with me
To every town I visit when I leave here:
An olfactory, tactile reminder of home,
A touchstone when I am afraid
And lonely, or have lost my way.
It will go into the ground with me
When I die, adding to the dirt
In Menallen Friends Cemetery.
I am made of dirt,
The good soils of America
And of Ireland and Scotland before,
Of Africa long before that.
I love dirt.
