Ode to Dirt

I was recently on a Kindness call with the Kindloook folks I met through Daniel Burns of Walla Walla, Australia (we met online through Seth Godin's Akimbo programs). Maybe you remember I posted something a while back regarding this amazing idea, which is a global kindness portal to capture, celebrate, and notice kindness more. What happens if we look a little longer, with kindness, Daniel Burns wonders.

This Kindloook link will take you to stories and other good things. Cursor down to read more about this sweeping idea the world needs more of, no matter where one lives, works, or plays.

When my breakout group on the Zoom call had a minute or two left, "Deb" wondered if we had ever heard Sharon Olds' poem Ode to Dirt. I don't think anyone did, but I quickly Googled it and read it out loud before we were called back to the main Zoom room. If you haven't heard or read it, please take a minute to read it now. I think it is so, so good!

Ode to Dirt

Written and read by Sharon Olds

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,

I thought that you were only the background

for the leading characters—the plants

and animals and human animals.

It’s as if I had loved only the stars

and not the sky which gave them space

in which to shine. Subtle, various,

sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,

you’re our democracy. When I understood

I had never honored you as a living

equal, I was ashamed of myself,

as if I had not recognized

a character who looked so different from me,

but now I can see us all, made of the

same basic materials—

cousins of that first exploding from nothing—

in our intricate equation together. O dirt,

help us find ways to serve your life,

you who have brought us forth, and fed us,

and who at the end will take us in

and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

Photo credit: Unsplash - Gabriel Jimenez

bSoleille!

Terri