The dirt does as it pleases, blooming what it chooses from the droppings of the careless wind. It pushed up the palm trees reflected on the water, and the sunflowers higher than my shoulders, and the lemon trees with heavy stiff yellow fruit. I wish I was the dirt. I wish I could push up and swell things to life. A new lover, a new self that would sway and nod in agreement at night, Another day perfectly completed. Rest would be assured to even the shadowy marigold heads. In the morning the sun comes up and there are vast movements of people, social upheavals, revolutions. I stay still. My one job pushing life through surfaces. I want my work to be producing cherries in the summer and their blossoms in the spring, canopies of them for tourists to snap pictures of and kiss under. I want to be part of the bread they break and taste, but never be expected. That is the joy of being soil. I’ll grow new memories for you cell by cell. I will go barren, dormant for months, buried under depths of snow and ice, silently waiting to bring color, light, news of warmth to the world. I will give you Oaks, Banyans, and Maples to blow cool breezes through your windows on days you cannot unzip your dress yourself and long for someone there to do if for you. You will stomp on me, curse me, when wetted by rain & met by your footstep. You, never knowing, how many of the best senses in the world need to get through me to give joy to you. When it is your time, they will lay you deep inside of me or sprinkle you so the wind can make you a part of me. I probably contain parts of your grandma, a Native American warrior, a homeless man you ignored ignoring every day. My beauty is, I will take anything and everything and use it to make the world more beautiful, despite the fact, I am perhaps the least astounding feature the world has to stare at. You blame me for ruining your rugs and floors, but the next time you eat a peach or bite your apple, or suck on some mango juice, I will smile, knowing, I am dirt, and dirt does what it pleases.
Oak Roads: Poetry and Musings 