Earthworms
Thickest clods of
this clay-bound soil
split with the fork
each reveal their jubilant worm.
A trench for spuds
is sewn with them, hurrying home
back to the damp
and the blank black instantly made
and constantly,
where light goes flatline, no last gasp.
But the big warm
hand’s there, the infrared tickle
they nestle in,
that asks them never to fall still,
to remind us
life looks both ways, our graves their sky.
Theirs the chanting
that is written in the roses’
opening books,
theirs the dance that goes on under
leaves of leather
round the oak’s horned feet, forever
mingling the fall,
neither married nor given in.
If perching birds,
blackbird, thrush and robin are shards
of reflexion
shone into stuff from top angels
then angels’ food
is angels when they hale these up
from that
sexless,
pure, incessant labour of help,
their groundbreaking
work whose chorus is the whole green
face of the earth,
the hallelujah of the worms.
John Gibbens
