by Maxine Kumin
It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.
We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,
or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.
And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap
coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter
it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.
In my adult life I have mothered three children who at one time were all under the age of five and never lived in a home without pets. It could be said (to borrow a friend's term) I am a poop engineer. Here on the farm I pick, move and pile a variety of excrement every day - I collect it in piles to turn again to rich black earth. By now I could safely identify seven species by blind smell test. Finding the beauty in it is a must.
Here's My visual response - a quick mixed media piece inspired by the delivery system.
taken with my phone because the dog ate the camera
this is some great shit, this is.
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