Photo by Jenna Stensland, Unsplash.
Ode To Mud
Most Grand Sogginess,
the silent ground has meditated all these months
with the stillness of monks, until now, lowly singer
of spring, you swing us slowly toward lilacs
and loosenings, O, Rhapsody of Mud!
Revelation of worms, our 5-hearted saviors
who nurture the dirt; ancestral household
of bulbs who flourish in your fertile darkness.
We place one pastel foot with grace, to stay clean,
only to slip in a plotch of softened earth
and we come fumbling into your wet wisdoms.
High musician of murk, teach us to move deftly
as a jazz player’s fingers on a fretless bass
through your moist improvisations
while winter’s kittens in the fresh outdoors
explore mysterious paw-disturbing grass
before they sneak with legato stealth
through indigo thickets of April’s iris.
The grand divas of mud-country, pigs,
play your twelve-tone textures on their bristly backs,
sodden-swaying cows sink deep in the fluent fields
while a crowd of Michigan Bigfoots slog
each wet step heavy, heavier,
toward flirtatious maples whose
pure-flowing crystal tastes like bliss!
O, Divine Lowliness,
reservoir of rain in the park
where a child dressed in violet boots
and a pale blue sky tries out her first mud-legs
while we release our winter sorrows
and shadows from the clutch of ice
before the torch-song sun warms you to dust
we surrender to your humid delights.
O, rapture of mud!
We return to a full-bodied waltz
in your damp embrace.
–Louisa Loveridge Gallas
