Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought 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 the earth,
you’re our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I could not recognize
a creature 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 dance 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 your arms.
Ode to Dirt
- By Sharon Olds
142 total words
1 minutes of reading

- Published July 31, 2013
Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds is the author of numerous books of poetry. She teaches at New York University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing. Her newest collection of poetry, Stag's Leap (Knopf, 2012), received the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Pulitzer Prize.