To a Millipede



She’s instinctively timorous, blind
And detrivorous—destined to comb
For cuisine in the loam. There the sun
Never splays its munificent rays,
So she digs subterranean bays
To call home.

Sectioned metameres lengthening—stiff
Chitin strengthening—Undulant feet
Rake the substrate she eats. Mulling naught
But survival, self-doubts never rile
Her. Simplicity’s life renders guile
Obsolete.

If austerity typifies all
That’s divinity; coiling inside
Exoskeleton’s dignity—why
Don’t we mimic this millipede’s niche
And ditch wishes for strictures by which
We’d abide?

Well, the crux is (however overt
Our resistance) we’re already mucked—
We shuck earth for subsistence. Let's laud
Shared existence, then loudly proclaim
Incongruity’s just in the frame
We construct.

Mindy Watson

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Mindy Watson  would be pleased to hear them.