I squat on the dirt
Pushing aside woodchips
Soil fills up the space beneath my fingernails
My fingertips grow dry.
The sun comes out,
Creating sweat that drips down my face, my arms
Until I am forced to go take a sip of water,
But then goes away again.
I dig hole after hole
Sticking my trowel into the earth and pulling it out again
Flinging clumps of dirt into the bushes
And while I do I think about the ground.
There are other types of holes
Unlike the ones I dig now
That are in large spaces of clean cut grass,
Not dirty gardens in the yard.
These are the holes that hold large wooden boxes
With bodies inside
A dead being frozen in time
An empty skin used and discarded.
The boxes are packed into the hole by layers of soil
And above them are tombstones to mark their existence
And crying humans that still remember, still regret
And sometimes a bouquet of flowers to commemorate the space.
Once I have dug all the holes I can dig
I take a flower out of its container
Placing it into its newfound home
And packing the dirt around it like wrapping paper.
I plant flower after flower
Each of them unique despite some repeating colors
Some have sparse wilting petals while others are thick with bloom
Some barely fill up space while others stand tall and proud.
But the ground is not only for bodies
We also put sprouts and seeds into it
Growing new life from its moist rich space
To sprout up towards the sun and join the world.
We plant crops that will feed our family
And later our village, and then our nation
And all those around us survive
On the fruits of this labor that we pull from their homes.
We plant flowers too
Simply because they are beautiful
And sometimes it is a thing of pride and wealth
But it can also be spreading the love and passion of nature.
Once the flowers are all settled in
I drag back the woodchips
Weaving the damp brown mulch among the flowers
A large beetle makes an appearance to run across my hand.
Humans have done all they can to tame the ground
To colonize it and make it their own
But the ground has been around longer than we have
And its own civilizations flourish despite our ignorance.
We are caught up in our own importance
While beneath our feet the earth goes down for miles upon miles
And the top layer is full of spiders, ants, and other bugs
The ones who truly rule this world.
They are everywhere
Living their own lives regardless of our existence
Millions of tiny souls in tiny bodies in just the space around us
But we only recognize them when they are in our way.
Brushing the excess dirt off my hands
I stand up and survey the flowers I have planted
And then I look at the ground.
The ground is full
It is our death and our life
And for all the tiny creatures that share our small piece of the world
It is their death and their life too.
The ground is solid and firm
Yet it is always changing
It never leaves despite always moving.
We live on the ground
We live off the ground
And someday we will return to the ground.
We ignore the ground
Because to recognize it would be to recognize our own impermanence
Our lives are a circle but the ground stays constant.
The ground was here before us
And it will be here after us
And our job in life is to accept that
And appreciate the ground we have
Before it’s too late.