This Bag Of Dirt Is Poetry

This Bag Of Dirt Is Poetry
© Surazeus
2024 02 02

Walking signless roads through America, 
I carry bag of dirt that I dug up 
from just outside the front door of the home 
where I was born, where my father was born, 
and where his father died building that home, 
because this bag of dirt contains my soul. 

This bag of dirt is poetry of hope 
that, one day after wandering anywhere 
far from first homeland of my primal soul, 
where bones of my ancestors turn to dirt, 
I may return to land where I was born 
when I sprang from dragon teeth in the dirt. 

This bag of dirt has been passed down to me 
too many generations of rebirth 
for me to remember where it came from, 
where its rich minerals of fertile faith 
were formed from lava of volcano fire 
that fountains red as blood from heart of Earth. 

So I continue journey of my heart 
on ancient quest to explore the whole Earth 
till I find valley along river shore 
where my first mother dug it with her hands, 
perhaps ten thousand years ago or more, 
and filled this bag she sewed from bovine hide. 

If you smell pungent odor of this dirt, 
that I have carried for ten thousand years, 
providing pulse for every heart of hope 
that animates dreams of ancestral brains, 
you will feel ancient spirit of the Earth 
fill your heart with love for our long-lost home. 

Though we are homeless for ten thousand years, 
forever wandering west on signless roads 
in casual quest to find home of the sun, 
we find that in each nameless land we claim, 
where we build temporary home of faith, 
this bag of dirt is poetry of home. 

In this uncanny valley of my heart, 
where I now dwell in home my hope has built, 
I keep that ancient bag of dirt I cherish 
slumped on glass shelf in display cabinet 
between the silver Holy Grail I found 
and the ever-singing Skull of Orpheus. 

I will show you my homeland bag of dirt 
if you show me yours, so we can compare 
heart-aching poetry of wordless hope 
that we may find again our paradise 
lost somewhere in swirling mists of Scythia, 
till I become dirt of America.