Decomposition

Описание: Decomposition Pamela Dintaman, Autumn 2019

I

Growing up as a farmer’s daughter
I know the word fallow,
a field lies fallow, empty,
to replenish naturally
for a future crop.

I have long believed in fallowness
too for our lives,
stopping, stillness,
allowing empty spaces.

What I may have overlooked
is what goes on beneath the surface…
worms crawling, chomping, excreting nutrients,
ants taking what they need for their own winter,
breaking apart mounds of what was fruitful
and is now decaying.

Beyond my romantic view of fallow as
stillness, peacefulness, waiting…
is a noisy gnawing crawling smelly fertile mess
of decomposition and recycling,
thousands of lichens reconfiguring the landscape
not unlike what an earthquake can do to an area.

‘Tis my own season now,
yes I felt it coming,
I made moves towards it,
slowing down my work…
and then the universe joined in the chorus
and slowed it down even more
creating these huge open spaces

and I feel the rumble within,
the ants and worms chawing noisily
at what is old and even beautiful
and needs to be broken up
and I send up
occasional gasps of protests,
dizziness, nausea,
as transformation rumbles on.

Don’t send me comforting messages of “relax into it,”
because I could add glowing words of hopefulness
but that would too quickly gloss over
necessary wrestling, reflection, rumination, the discomfort,
and take even you, my dear reader, off the hook too quickly.
Let the field lie fallow; enter the path of not knowing.


II

This season in the desert
the mesquite tree in front of our house
dropped hundreds of its bean pods
strewn all over the ground.

I considered raking them up
there were so many
but a week later
they were magically gone
broken up by many ants
preparing for winter
those bits now completely hidden
under the soil as winter food
life going on beneath the surface.

Today I sat in silence
picturing the ants chomping
through those hard dried bean pods
marveling at what falls apart
naturally organically.


III

Going through menopause
years ago I felt those heat flashes
in the middle of the night
like a furnace
burning up
what was
no longer needed.