Tag Archive: soil


Down In It

I smell so good after turning beds
of arugula by hand.

Chagall 2017

Prelude To An Epitaph

I live above a couple
farming bamboo in their flat,
I pray they’re not successful.

Rapidly growing aggressive members of
tribe Bambuseae are known to impale from below.

The fastest can grow nearly three feet a day
(that’s 90 cm for you smarter people).

My bed is low, my mattress is thin,
the odds – they shift daily.

© Chagall ∞

1 Ticket, 1 Ride

Find a hill, a dimple of land, lie down,
wedge your cheek into the hollow
of rich organic debris, breathe
deeply the years of the regolith
beneath you, grind your pelvis
to bedrock, mold to gravity’s
pull, feel yourself ride
the earth, Gaia ’round
and around

Wheeee! See!
We’re falling!

© Chagall ∞

I Am Ground

Lost high atop clouds
Below rich colored soils
Rock, sand, silt, and clay

Angular, blocky
Mother’s rich in organics
Endless horizons

Infiltrate the ground
Seep red from leaching iron
More dense than porous

Root to me firmly
Here in the space of no air
Within the solid

© Chagall ∞

Neat Little Bows

How subtle are these symbols, to clinch or to clench,
both embrace, one the certainty of winning, the other
holds tight to imminent loss, to quench, bring cooling
liquid, healing balm, through tight canals to affliction,
immersion in ice, or steam, infinite horizons of water,
too quiet, to hush someone lovingly with finger upon lips
shushing air.

© Chagall ∞

Dearest Gaia

I pour water into the earth to watch it dissipate and percolate,
wondering where does the time go. The backs of my beach shoes

worn flat from my habit of not slipping in all the way,
my bare feet on warmed wood slats tell me I’m more alive now,

the sun underfoot, I am square, balanced atop the regolith,
a planet that spins and falls amid a din that I no longer hear,

the world that I see

as I follow the fan of my hand, implies all that there is
or nothing, depending solely on who I am, or no one.

© Chagall ∞

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