Plants and Poetry Journal

“Landless,” featured in Gravity’s Grave, Exploring Air, Water, & Soil

Many don’t survive. I know this without knowing it. I say this without saying it. I don’t ever speak. I am light. Or, at least we are light, intermittent words, in light. But, our fire is cold. The fire that exploded on the day I dug myself out of the ground was hot. The boy was still hot when he fell to the dirt next to me. I named him ‘Dirt’. His body was cloaked as dirt. Dirt is not soil. Dirt is the sprinkling of dark pieces and chemicals and dryness. All the odors that warn us we might not survive. All the stink that those who dig by us try to escape.

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