Composting

Mid-summer I ripped up all the brown-eyed susans,

imagining your brown thumb's reproach
as I fed them to the tiny heap.
Self-seeded poppies join the growing
mound by bushels in September,
along with rhubarb, corn stalks,
over-ripe tomatoes. I dump out


exhausted soil from indoor pots,
impatiens dreary from the summer sun
and yards and yards of grapevine
topped off by cabbage heads
reduced to stench and slime from early frost.


When winter came so did the flu.
I was sick with it most of the season,
dreaming deliriously of being barrowed out
to toss with the pungent brussel sprouts.
but finally spring came, and my fever broke.


So here I am at the pile, and I
with you, am gloriously overcome.


The trash we sorted has nurtured every root
and my strawberries are coming up like ants.


c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007