The Hard Body Of The Ground Always Appeases Me Poem by Patti Masterman

The hard body of the ground always appeases me
When I get too full of the worlds tumult and changes;
For the ground only rarely shifts in it's motions, out from under my feet
Or unsettles me; the worst it usually has to offer is mud or ice
And mud can often be avoided with forethought,
And ice can sometimes be conquered, through extreme concentration
And just a little bit of luck. Not so life.

Life sends you sprawling time and again, onto the ground's
Abundant spaciousness, while presupposing, that you must find it disconcerting;
But for me it will always be the bosom of something
Larger than my little life, and all my petty wanting and needing.

If anything it is like a lover, who takes me unexpectedly, over and over
And then says to me again; you see; I was the only thing that was missing
From your counted days; so remember well, you can never really leave me behind
Or forget that it is I, the dust of all your spinning atoms,
And the magnetism of your feet, which bind us forever.

And I know that my feet, upon the thick skinned earth,
Must feel like the precarious pulse of life itself,
To this large body, gave birth to everything here;
And I know that when I sleep the last sleep,
I will lie forever, inside that restless body
And we will go to watch the end of time together;
Just as we saw the unwinding of time, as one.

Closer than two lovers; closer than mother and fetus;
Closer than the winds, which stir the tombstones grasses.