Ground

This stuff is what we are born of. Before my eyes
And between my fingers—grainy, sticky, chalky—
The conditions lie at hand for life to burst out of.
How stubbornly it behaves, baked hard as biscuits
In summer, yet, thawed by spring, spreading wide
To swallow a hundred horses, and in winter
Rigid enough to scrape knuckles and crack bones.
It would seem to yield no passage, except that roots
As delicate as hairs can pierce hardscrabble
Without a bruise or blister and hold their course
Whether opposed by gravel or mud. By tasting it
Farmers can guess at what may come of its favors,
Whether their crops will require manure or limestone.
We savor in the first-plucked leaf of lettuce
The lingering fragrance of Sun, which slips away
To the soil that bestowed it almost within the hour,
Just as fish lose their colors out of water.
Just as I would despair, if you were dead.