Manifesto of a Backyard Compost Heap

A poem

A poem

Image by Nightcafe

I am a great recycler, 
nature’s alchemist, transforming decay. 
Heap your leavings at my feet,
vegetable parings, autumn’s fallen army, 
coffee grounds spent and cold.
Beneath this unassuming mound
a miracle ferments, 
the great cycle spins its wheel.

I take what you discard 
and return it to the source.
With a billion hungry organisms
I break down and digest the unwanted, 
the inedible crust of life, 
until all is rich, 
black humus again.

From my fertile belly springs rebirth,
a pushing up of tender shoots, 
the unfurling of green possibility. 
I am life’s great renaissance, 
resurrection’s primordial womb.

Patient, I turn your entropy to loam, 
transforming society’s expelled remains
into volumes of fecundity. 
Revere me, for I am nature’s profligate poet, 
endlessly renewing.

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