I have the ground | Poem

The last refuge.

You wreck yourself on poison things, 
lick led, or so they say. The brain 
it rots it splits itself, withstanding 
only pain.

The people there make sympathies, 
but deft you are no more. The hate 
you have now for yourself 
has brought you to abhor. 

You lose your mind, your skill, your will. 
You think yourself so poor. You wonder 
if you’ve lost it all, but no, you have the floor.

Pushing up upon yourself 
is earth with all her might. 
Yet you curse, she’s damning thee, 
that gravity doth fight.

You sag, you age, you lose your sound, 
you’re hardly worth your bones. 
Your friends are dead and passed you on, 
no good of you is known. You wonder 
how you even breathe, you struggle just to stand. 
You don’t, you fall, you’ve lost it all. 
Just days till you disband.

But always then and always now 
you won’t have lost your ease, 
for even when you’re lost not found 
and crying on your knees, you 
cannot lose the mat of life, 
the home to all your seeds.

“At last,” you say, “I have the ground, 
I sit, I stand, I till the earth. The ground is all I need.”