Just:
1) Only, merely or simply “It’s just a joke” 2) behaving
according to what is morally right and fair “A just cause”
Simple
dirt, this living soil, fed by our ashes and the slowly decaying
plants that we had nurtured
Just
dirt…that is, righteous dirt. The ancient healing earth, our
silent and loamy benefactor
The
rich-smelling, good-tasting, long-lasting, crop-nurturing humus that
provides for us all
Those
happy dirty children, those wagging dogs rolling in good dirt, this
tired
farmer’s dirty hands
Dirt
shoved aside, carried off, compressed into lifeless, random heaps,
dumped and forgotten
Carelessly
robbed of its roots and enslaved by the pitiless alien lords of
industrial
agriculture
Carried
off with all the chemicals they so often overuse to kill
profit-cutting weeds and pests
They
forced up some crops, got their bonuses and left us to just watch the
poisoned soil blow away
Just
dirt beneath our bare brown feet, this so-simple dirt that we simply
cannot live without
The
ground a living layer filled with bacteria and microbes – they who
share almost all of our DNA
Honest
dirt, from which we were created and will return, according to so
many of our religious myths
Dirt
Simple some say, but we know it’s much more,
that close-knit, moist and dark bio-community
Crusted
with salt left by their dried up fossil water, magnifying and wafting
toxins into the air
Preserved
with all the care of cost accounting, then sold off for yet one more
lame, cloned stripmall
Casually
raped with grunting, smoky-toothed bulldozers, auctioned off to
the highest bidder
Torn
up, trampled down, littered upon - then ignored, scorned and casually
pissed on…in passing
This
land that my family farmed with love for generations, the
good earth that we so treasured
Magically
bringing forth the food that supported us and our livestock, and even
the wild birds
We
paced it and crumbled it between our fingers, for its health defined
our very sense of well-being
Planted
the trees that blocked the wind to help to hold the soil - and we
pulled the weeds by hand
All
forms of toxics are spilled on, drained into and buried under it:And
we are ashamed of being dirty
Naked
too long, growing cracked and hard, unable to sponge up the gentle
rains anymore
You
- go pour this stuff out over there in the dirt, and hurry up, we got
more real work to do
Scoop
it out by the ton, crush it, wet it down, chemically extract and
leave it laying in leaching piles
Walking
barefoot amid the seedlings in a warm
summer rain, babies with us as we tend our fields
Turn
it over gently to smell the richness of the spring, rejoice over the
good
rain, along with the soil
Bury
grandfather with our ancestors in this land he loved, ache in spirit
along with the drought
Built
our home with the mud and straw from this place, drew sweet, clean
water from beneath
Crowned
with rusting metal, faded plastic, and broken glass, now it oozes
awful liquids
Absolutely
ignored until it accidentally fouls us while on our busy,
self-important
errands
Feces
mixing in with the mud, poisoned, but still able to harbor
disease-inducing micro-organisms
Upon
catching our drifting mercury and lead, hydrocarbons and PCBs, its
toxic dust fills our lungs
Just
dirt, a rich home, the very source of all our sustenance, that
ultrathin skin of the earth
Ours
to use up and despoil, waste and defile, gouge and quarry, in
absolutely any way we see fit
Miraculous,
fragile blessing built over thousands of years, we must preserve it
for
our children
Let
it dry up, die and blow away, WhatEver, but hey, we
intend to remain, purposefully
unaware