Earth Gates (the rock)
in the corner of my garden
a rock
the size of a human pelvis
soft-edged
double-handed
grey w/ a charcoal grey stripe
levitates
above a lace of
kernelled soil
curious
I lift the rock
&
discover a circus
of glossy bubbled beings
a zigzag frenzy
of running
black stitches
glassine legs
abdomen antennae
strung together
a tiny city
riled roiling
helter-skelter
&
a chute of glory
throbs beneath
the staid grey rock
narrow columns bead up
head by head
(how many stories down?)
body then body then body
multiplying
moving dying
united
soccer players socking away
yellow balls of larvae
tailors and farmers
feeders of the social stomach
miners and acrobats
pathfinders gravediggers
lion-tamers
sort the soil
tunnel in porosity
and
riffing off each other
lay down
their communal
nutrients
&
the weight
of the rock
the gate of the rock
is propped up by the many
of their shoulders
&
are they singular
are they one and one
or legion?
this earth of beings
&
the heavy lid of the rock
holds forth in the outer world
gives nothing away
&
a gardener in Ontario
tried each of the recommended
tricks to rid his garden
of ants:
cinnamon, vinegar,
garlic, coffee, cayenne,
lemon eucalyptus, Dawn—
the ants undeterred
undead interred
rung round
his roses
no ashes no falling
bridges or arches
they posied
in pockets
and ran the battle
underground
winning they won
over the gardener
ants are okay tenants
he claims now
(unless they’re fired-up biters
or carpenters deconstructing your sill)
ants aerate the soil
and eat the dead
only once in awhile
will they nip
a red-ripe berry
or pock the cheek of a peach
&
what if
One Moment!
the heavy roof of sky lifts
w/o warning
the eye of the sun
locks in
and unempaneled air
rushes toward you
w/ full flushing force!
as if what’s been built
(generations of exertion
and bodily exhaustion)
were nothing
nothing at all?
Oh Hello Death!
(slowly I
lower
the rock)
Mary Buchinger is the author of /klaʊdz/ (2021), e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling (2018), Aerialist (2015), and Virology (forthcoming). Her work has appeared in AGNI, Gargoyle, Massachusetts Review, [PANK], Plume, and elsewhere. President of the New England Poetry Club, she teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston.
