Earthworms

You see them on a sunny summer morning,
squirming on a sidewalk,
lost on hot concrete,
not knowing which way leads
back to the loam cool soil of birth,
back to the world of damp tunnel
and familiar root, brothers, sisters,
and fathers now the soil itself.

It must have been the night that drew them out,
a Stygian breeze chasing dew drops
down a blade of grass.
It must have been the moon,
half full and filtering through a cloud,
making the sidewalk seem so simple.
It must have been a swarm of stars,
each laughing down the lie that little earthworms
are free to crawl and not get caught.

But see them now on sidewalks,
their fine slick skins wrinkling,
turning brittle with the heat,
as the sun, its back toward them,
pulls itself slowly up the sky,
and ants begin to gather
from a sure methodic line,
part them into pieces,
and haul them away,
heart by heart.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 13, 1986)