Thick sticky dark earth from the dumped 

worm bin

lay unfinished on the old plywood

top

whose holes had let in the rain and

rat

I saw scurry into the Blackberry vines and

thorns

 

Stuck into the tar were cracked brown

shells

eggs whose casement was not easily turned to

compost

A hundred or more glisteny thin-walled

cups

cracked on counters or on hot edges of

cast iron

pans needing curing from the sticky 

protein

white that formed at breakfasts or mid-morning

scrambling

 

Also unchanged, skins of avocados and their egg-shaped

seeds

still leathern and woody undigested by

decomposers

as if  only moments not months had passed. since

knife

halved them open to spread their rich green on

bread

wanting only a little salt and the slippery

flesh

of tangy tomatoes smelling of warmth of morning

garden

 

I felt I had interrupted something

sacred

that my pushing over the old horse

trough

to gather the labors of time and

worms

which would sit rich and dark in

beds

of sunflowers  raspberries peas and

roses

had been hasty and careless and now a

shovel

was needed to lift the heavy wet clumps of

earth

 

The worms were unaware, their lighter brown

bodies

curved and turned into the wet dark messy

mass

and were lifted and layered...soil and straw...soil and

straw

into the now righted trough then covered by

plywood

heavier and unholed to keep out rats and

rain

and to leave in darkness the change from scrap to

soil

to leave more time for the worms to work

magic