A Poem: Show the Dirt

Show the Dirt is published in the 3rd edition of my Bike Wilder Poetry CSA.

I’ve got maps spread out

all over the kitchen floor

headwaters splintering into deltas

whose braids run so far down their back

they touch the ground

sweeping up seeds behind them as they walk.

Snow blowing down my collar

rain leaking in through my boots

the river depositing silt into my hair,

whittled down to sap

I’m letting the light in

however it wants to get in.

Out in the darkness of the frozen lake

there are fish suspended

in the top six inches of ice

whose bodies keep the dreams

of last summer’s water safe through winter,

held here they will wait

until the sun returns,

loosening their fins and blood,

back into the water’s running hands.

The part of me that is Watercress

Grizzly shoulder, Lark Sparrow crown

or Big Bluestem inflorescence

has been waking

in the middle of the night,

near the fork of a creek

at the foot of a hill,

curled into the metabolism

of damp leaves and mossy under-song,

I am troubled and unable to return to sleep.

What must we do to ensure a future

where living does not come

at such cost to life,

where watersheds are not choked,

where human beings are not wage slaves,

where value systems are based in generosity,

not accumulation?

Far off through the darkened trees

I hear a clanking and banging,

as though a 50-gallon steel barrel

filled with nails and ball bearings

is being rolled over roots, river stones and deadfall,

I can smell the smoke and dirt-sweat,

of whoever is pushing the barrel,

they will use any means necessary

to take what they are coming for,

offering nothing in return when they leave.

My eyes burn while watching into it.

I press my ear hard against the earth,

the days have begun to lengthen,

any day now the water will begin to run,

I take up two stars with my collar and listen,

I melt the snow that has fallen on the back of my neck

and drink it.

Planted in the rooty-ness of creation,

I am flecked with mycelium,

soaked by fear that has dried into love,

I lick my hands, and then my feet,

tasting the blood-metal of the cosmos on my tongue,

awakened by the un-doneness of it all

pined to Orion’s arcing back,

I am spiraling through the darkness

in the same way the grandmothers used to do it,

so slow that the conquerors

will never notice my escape.