Dirt Poetry

CSA Musings of a science minded kinda guy

DIRT CONVERTER

by Noah Levit

This has occurred to me: I am made of Liz and John's dirt. That's right. Beyond all nuance and art, if one breaks down the process from seed to stomach, by my estimation, we all owe Liz and John one big heap of dirt.

It all begins when they place those tiny little energy extraction pods into the ground, add a little water and love, and the mining process is set in motion. They begin to tunnel into the earth, deeper and deeper, branching out to extract all the minerals, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus they can. They keep mining for these raw elements and minerals, the building blocks of their great structures to be. For some, they build massive corn towers reaching towards the sky, transporting all these raw materials out of the soil to the farthest reaches by little xylem and phloem conveyor belts. Others get bust constructing broad, sweeping wings of chard and lettuce. Some prefer to stay closer to the source, extracting carbon and assembling them into chains to build the stable and deep carrot beet foundations. Cities are built. Projects, suburbs. Busy bee-traffic filling stations. One day...a hand intervenes...the works are uprooted. These many reconfigurations of dirt are handled by some great mysterious force and brought to your friendly local yoga studio. Your box of dirt arrives dependably.

After over a year of a diet consisting of 70% veggies from Rio Gozo, I figure I'm pretty much made out of Liz and John's dirt. Liz and John must marvel at all their dirt walking around out there doing whatever it is that all you piles of dirt do. A farmer is really nothing more than a dirt converter. Thank you Liz and John! For making me so dirty.