Vox Populi
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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.
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It starts with the soil. Everybody needs to hear this.
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Exactly. Thanks, Kim.
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