Human Waste
May 22 2015


The first dandelions
of early spring
appear on the septic field.
Their long fibrous roots
must reach down deep,
tapping in
to its warm subterranean soup.
Into human waste,

nutrient-rich
but shunned.

Of all our embarrassments, and shame
we are never more disgusted than this.

Or fastidious,

going about our business

as we euphemistically say,
excusing ourselves
for nature's call.

Yet when I see the first weeds of spring
-- succulent, and bright,
shooting-up before my eyes --
I can't help but think
of human waste.
And imagine
the flowers that will grow on my grave,
the after-life
of carbon.

Which, in a few short weeks
will turn leggy, menacing
unsightly;
sheathed in long razored leaves,
a ghostly halo
of metastatic seeds.

The cycle of growth, senescence
life, and death
that connects us
to posterity.
Because nothing is wasted
where flowers bloom
and soil feeds,
the neat succession, intricate web
enmeshing us, as well.

In the antiseptic city
we are not much troubled
by consequence.
But here, I can glimpse my fate.
When hungry weeds
will over-run
my fallow space,
fertile earth
reclaim me.

I know this sounds pretentious; yet looking at the bright succulent dandelions shooting up on the septic field, I couldn't help but think of the cycle of life, of the almost miraculous transformation of its basic stuff. So, am I death-obsessed to have immediately conflated this view with the image of a dead body, interred in the bloom of spring?

My wish is to be buried in a cardboard box in a shallow grave at the base of my favourite tree. What better expression could there be for the succession of life; for trying to extract some meaning from the oblivion of death? Since I don't believe in the supernatural, or the divine, or an after-life, this is the best I can do. So to me, this profusion of flowers is an uplifting premonition of the end; not a morbid pre-occupation with death.

The poem is a bit wordy. And perhaps it belabours the obvious. Less is more, after all. So if I had to distil it down to its essence, I think I would stick with these 3 irreducible lines: Because nothing is wasted/ where flowers bloom/ and soil feeds. Finally, perhaps the Haiku (if not the technically correct 5 - 7 - 5, then at least close in spirit) I repeatedly say is the ultimate aspiration of good poetry!

(The biologist in me feels the urge to add that disgust is one of our basic emotions, and a very useful one: that it's biological, not cultural. Communities that kept living space and excrement separate survived; disgust protected them from bad things like cholera. So evolution has programmed us; not just the niceties of polite society.)