Under the sod’s belly stiff from winter roots
going down and under, clinging
to that essential soil, April sun finds
out the worms who have been turning
the soil down under, meandering through
lime and potassium, through buried roots
and walls of sedimentary rock,—
working the earth silently without fuss.

“This poem is part of a collection called The Coming of Age written in the 1980s. The poem is about natural process and how human beings often lose sight of the process. Man uses bulldozers to burrow into the earth, but nature (metaphorically), never invasive, allows its creations to unfold. Under the sod’s belly, where the human eye cannot see, exists an ecosystem that provides an intelligence far beyond man‘s. Under the cover of silence, in the darkness, the April sun brings to manifestation a creative process that human beings should not only admire but also try to emulate—since without the lowly worm, man could never have evolved. The lesson to be learned in this poem is humility.”

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