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Foretold
my last days
shall be underground
trees covered with earth
branches of black water
in my pocket
sand
and sudden hands
over every mouth
Poems on the topic: earth
Poems on the topic “earth” on Poets.by.
A walk in the park
a park keeper told me
what the earth is
cockle shells and weather
dust and dead beds
a face for
the bountiful world
which we must of necessity
break in pieces
with words and blows
and a degree of madness
but what is the unhappiness in that
if the light is good
surely the land will never suffer
it is so great still
and every bird so quiet
like a hole the rain drowned
Geophagy
I eat clay again,
satisfied by that nothing
to the full,
that ugly child let in
at a back door.
Off the land
I have no name,
only the troubled dish
we all call home.
Men are from Earth, women are also from Earth
mathematical
observation of the moon—
talking with my wife
Hunter’s Moon
an eye that takes
two weeks to open
how to sleep through that
unwavering gaze
round as an infant
indifferent as a cane toad
to some appearance
of planetary conjunction
much less any hypothetical
end of life on earth
where the other eye
now dreams storms
Ode to Old Shoes
the feet seek freedom
busting the broadest toe box
splaying out for balance
in an almost gape
at the gravity of it all
and the earth’s endlessness
such a repertoire
of grounds and surfaces
for the feet to savor without ingesting
to rely upon without clinging
a lesson from the dust
of the ancestors
who would’ve gone to rest
in their best shoes
the straight and narrow ones
that pinched all through church
Place holder
morning smells like a burning hymnal
now that it’s afternoon
like a vast excavation
by archaeologists of the present
a blend of fresh earth and mildew
ozone and the blood of cut roots
if i were a dancer i would
know what to do
with this wild scent turning
into end-of-summer heat
as it is there are sun-drunk leaves
insects and vagrant warblers
and they seem to have
things under control
while i sit and try to be
a better place holder
Knifeless knife
hot summer night
itching even where
nothing itches
wind from the west the sound of metal striking metal
I found a knife in the woods. Or more accurately, I found an old, tooled leather sheath for a knife with the remains of a hilt sticking out of it.
Prospector
rubbing my belly I grow
old and ugly
all winter I am broke
and in summer like a child
I dig for gold
the earth going to pieces
in my pocket
Drought
Rain has forsaken us. However much water I give my gardens, it still isn’t enough. Tomato and squash vines wilt. Corn leaves curl. The potatoes gave up altogether, leaving me a half-sized harvest. I feel like the opposite of King Midas: Everything I touch turns to dust. But let me have one wish. I’ll keep it secret even from myself, and carry it back to earth’s ear in a bucket.
sinkholy
fields resting on straw-
thin stalactites
* * *
building site
the four-square mounds
of unearthed earth
Net Work
It is still light where I sit
reading the lines you are touch-
typing in the dark.
The planet’s curves
are always coming between us
her ceaseless spinning
her magnetic field
her core of molten rock.
But it’s the state that says stop
behind arbitrary lines
the border force that says stand still
for security screening
and if you’re poor, stay out.
The earth is always knitting
us together. Her forces
are centripetal and convergent.
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