Thoughts on Jainism

The ground runs dense

with the decomposed

bodies of the everyday

causalities: beetles, worms,

ants, gnats, spiders,

even daddy longlegs

mushed into dust by routine,

our boots stomp the same

ground in the same way

everyday. We can say

dirt is fertile, the dead

have sacrificed

much for the living. Insects,

martyrs, an honorable death.

That porous soil clogs, made

opaque by figures contorted

to conform to depressions

roots leave when their bodies

die. The dead will

shrivel, sometimes

before they die, root

rot, or after, carcasses, create

space for toes to wiggle within

sturdier boots, to say the turf

beneath feels sturdier than

ever, too, and how fortunate

it is that there exists so much

more to die to fill potholes

like asphalt, like mass graves.

Where plots of gardens once breathed

patiently, mountains roar up,

gray and desolate, thick, muck,

hardened molasses, but sturdy,

acme unreachable on foot.