Worm Wisdom
The cut worm forgives the plow.
—Blake
This morning I refuse to read the news,
allow it dominion over my attention
as I’ve grown accustomed to. Rather,
I’m attending to those rowdy blackbirds
in the elms, making their usual ruckus
over blackbird politics, the mottled
tabby belly up on the paving stones
stoned on the sunlight of a cloudless noon,
the worm inching its way across the lawn
on its long, slow journey to worm wisdom.
See that pile of leaves over near the fence
my wife raked yesterday, her perfect hands
gathering up order out of chaos?
I watched her kneel down to pull up a root
from the soil, pluck out a pesky weed
doing her part to make space in this world
for beauty, bequeath us the gift of herself—
the best of herself, the best of all of us.
*
Marc Alan Di Martino’s books include Day Lasts Forever: Selected Poems of Mario dell’Arco (World Poetry, 2024—longlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation), Love Poem with Pomegranate (Ghost City, 2023), Still Life with City (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His poems and translations appear in Rattle, iamb, Palette Poetry and many other journals and anthologies. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Currently a reader for Baltimore Review, he lives in Italy.