Contrite

What is it to breathe the earth?
Curved spine, and hands in dirt,
Palms — muddy stigmata mess,
Sighs unveil a world of hurt.
The rift cuts within, without,
Thus all is broke and pervert.

Crumpled corpus in folded limbs,
Prayer bones seep in the earth,
In fetal frame, in broken breath,
Confession cries for the rebirth,
Of sacrament — that sacred spark,
Of solemn fear, of tender mirth.

And in the cleansing of the dew,
The earth exudes musty and sweet,
Smells of death and life from death,
Lift the head, the light to meet,
As the flower, as the chrysalis,
In newborn tremble from the peat,
Lifted.