Gail Langstroth: Composting on Earth Care Farm

 Composting on Earth Care Farm


     on the occasion of Mike and Betty Merner's 50th wedding anniversary
.

When a swell of air rises from the mounds, it’s a bloom
Betty says. You might want to close the windows. 

Seagulls squawk overhead as I detect my first bloom;
pungent tang burns my nostrils: outbreath of microorganisms’ 

digesting-moving-reproducing. Here micro means nano. 
In two handfuls of the finished compost there are more microorganisms 

than people on earth, says Mike. After six days I see why  
I made the trip—what have I shaped, held, lived, thought, tossed, 

scrapped forgot dug up   felt/what do I feel? Stars slice the dark.
I leave the windows open all night; a new moon unfurls its scythe. 

Through morning mist I recognize the farm’s two payloaders waiting
with their open-bucket scoops. Justin and Craig know how to handle 
       the machinery, 

mix carbon-rich piles of wood chips, straw and leaves with moist, 
       nitrogen-rich 
fish and meat scraps. It’s an art, says Mike, it took me years to 
       figure it out. 

Each pile has its own name and history: Simone (sold beginning of July),
       Penelope, 
Saint Gertie (Gertrude is the patron saint of cats and gardens), Omi 
       was started 

as Covid broke. At 10-meter intervals a small flag indicates a new section.      
The staff know how many times each mound has been turned and mixed.

Bee just received food scraps, Dave’s coffee grounds, fish rests. Two 
       days ago 
a truck dumped a load of meat. White gristle, racks of ribs, thigh, 
       skin, shin bones 

seethe in sun heat. Birdie the dog yanks a bowed harp of bone from the pile, 
drags it to a grassy spot under oak shade. As soon as she drops her steal—
       a dense 

cape of incessant black-winged buzzing encases the corpse. Flies declare 
It’s our banquet now. How to scoop, mix, lift—grapple/reduce the weight 

of my life mass? Trap carbon, contour memories into oxygenated air? 
How to drive a payloader, invite nano/micro in to digest my
       triumphs/struggles? 

I see the pile of wilted porcelain-pink wedding roses left by Fig and 
       Squill Floral. 
How to furrow, till, turn my teeming into finer soul soil, bring 
       protective sheaths

to my vulnerable? I text Betty to ask when she needs her car. No schedule, 
it’s Sunday on the farm, I made crepes. When you want, come on over. 

Gail Langstroth is a poet, eurythmist and performer based in Pittsburgh. To order her collection firegarden / jardín-de-fuego, published by Get Fresh Books, click here.

Poem copyright 2022 Gail Langstroth. All rights reserved.

Film copyright 2022 Earth Care Farm. All rights reserved.