Composted Roses

 

I lost the heavy
      burden of lack
            when I embraced
                 my emptiness.
      Now I am full.
            My breathing pitches
      her tent on every star.
Each cell of my body
                  is her palace.
      One atom of me contains
            swirling Andromeda.
I lack no thing because
            I possess nothing.
      Possessing no thing
            I can be everywhere.
The smaller I become,
      the more useful I Am.
If you like, I will meet you
      here, at the center
            of the rose,
      the one you even now
            hold in your hand,
      shriveled and parched,
            the one you are about
                  to throw away.
Why won't you do that
      with your body?
            Throw yourself away
      like milkweed
                  in Autumn wind?
Is your heart not already
      the boundless space
            you call "away"?
What withers nourishes
                   creation.
     The deepest work is to be food.
          Why not just become
                a sacred meal?
Don't feed the big things,
           feed the little ones.
     That's what scatters you
                throughout the universe.
Break up
      your mighty nation
            into bio-regional republics,
      into villages, into gardens.
                  Honor the loam.
Kneel to nitrogen, potassium,
      ammonia molecules
            in a possum carcass.
Scatter your exhalation
      over landfills
                  and rubbled cities,
      feeding the inbreath
            of every newborn child.
What would Jesus do?
      He would become bread.
            "Take, eat,
                  this is my body.
      Drink this wine,
                  it is my blood."
If you want to follow his Way,
      make a covenant with worms.
Dish out your protein
                  to the bacillus.
      Glut the microbe,
            that royal bride
                 of entropy.
Your wedding is the loam itself.
      You are the crumb, 
            you are the waste,
      the compost,
                and the inheritance.
Become smaller.
           Become useful.
                 Become food.



Photo by Morgyn Church

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