ODE TO THE AMERICAN WORM

O you sassy ones! You can celebrate
antedating dinosaurs – 350 million years
of plowing soil for mites, nematodes
and bacteria. All that digesting, aerating,
and then fertilizing with your castings
(better known as your poops.) How you love
snuggling with roots of seedlings
making them feel welcome in dark earth.
One of your mates, an Australian,
likes to stretch his ten feet and gurgle,
a scary sound heard from below ground.
You know a slick filly in the Philippines
who boasts white spots with yellow centers
on her indigo skin. You watch ever eager
immigrant cousins (night crawlers and red
wigglers) arrive in sod for golf courses
and curled in bait buckets carried
by fishermen. You have local friends who swill
sewage at treatment plants, and by golly,
clean it up. Yes, you do fear cataclysm on earth
but console yourself. You can always split in half
if it comes to that, and then you have your
cocooning. Plus, the knowledge of sheer
volume of your extended family
comforts: neighborhoods range
from 10,000 per acre in Rumania
to 8 million wiggling bretheren
on New Zealand pasture land. So,
you say God bless America, and wink,
because from your low station you plainly see
that any person on this planet who stands tall
can do it only on the backs of worms.

by maria fire