Ode to the Earthworm

Today I helped my daddy plant the first seeds of spring.

Our garden is a little thing – 8 square-feet of precise soil

carefully measured, topped with compost from our kitchen,

mixed with bone meal laid last week (a labor of love),

irrigated by a little rubber hose on an automatic timer.

It is April 9^th, and everything is ready – almost – for today.

The worms are coming.

2,000 of them, in the mail, any minute now.

When they arrive, we are supposed to be ready

to put them into their new environment right away,

so we work, and – thank God – it is the first really nice day

in Chicago all year. Beautiful. Sunny. Cool. A breeze.

I lay the final 2-inch layer of compost with a little trowel

while daddy sifts the rest to free the darker, damper, dirt.

At noon, the worms arrive

in a little box – much littler than “2,000 worms” sounds like.

We open it to find a green cloth bag stuffed with dirt and worms,

from which a few little ones have escaped and are crawling

toward the edges of the box. They are tiny, thin, dehydrated.

Poor things. Daddy picks them up, saying “Oh, no you don’t,”

but he misses one, so I pick it up and look at it in my hand.

Barely moving, but yes – it is alive.

We take them to the three compost bins and sprinkle them in,

to join the few that have survived the brutal winter.

I watch them writhe in the soil, slowly spread, and start to dig.

Then I take the bag over to the garden, and place the rest of them

in the very center of our 8 square-foot plot:

a clump of them are stuck together: they look like a little squid

or octopus, flailing its tiny tentacles, until they, too, spread and dig

(I notice a particularly feisty one that jumps and flips a couple times)

they roll, they inch, they slither, they crawl,

to the safety of the dark and damp

to the nourishment of dirt and water

to work their alchemy,

little magicians…

dad explains how they improve the soil

by eating and excreting their nitrogen-rich castings, “black gold,”

(worms must be the only animal whose poop actually smells good!)

and how at the same time they aerate the soil 

– little moving tubes – veins, or wind pipes of the dirt.

they are as much the earth as they are animal…

 I told my dad that I would help him for just an hour

(because I am “very busy”)

but I am having so much fun that I decide to stay

and help him with the final task of the day:

planting spinach, lettuce, and onions.

I am honored

when he offers to let me do the planting.

I dig the rows with my fingers – shallow and thin,

while daddy fills the little disc that spreads the seeds.

and, after careful measurements, I sow them in the ground,

whispering small blessings of deep gratitude

and prayers for great abundance.

Then, I reach my hand into the bin

which dad has filled with black gold from last year’s worms,

and with that, cover the newly planted seeds

and gently pat them down.

And just like that, our work is done,

at least for today: the first seeds of spring are planted,

and will grow, with a little help from our friends:

the sun, the earth, the rain, the wind,

and the little worms.