DIRT

Even dirt is precious with microscopic 
pieces of other planets where rarities 
like rhodium are common.
Gold snakes through soil under our feet.
Someone found a vein of it in 1848 
while brushing his teeth in a stream—
if that’s what Sutter was doing
when he caught the sunlight’s flash.

But minerals in the dirt everywhere
can make jewels for the taking.
Did the universe conspire
to enrich any pilgrim
with a toothbrush?

Even more often trod upon
is the stuff that passes
between us when you hold a door 
for me because my arms are full.
And though I don’t know you 
and you’re in a rush, precious jewels
sparkle in your un-newsworthy kindness.

The most valuable is invisible ore
full of an urge to click a button
and send bandages and bread to orphans 
of a war around the globe.
Treasures like that cannot be mined 
by any sweat-strained
machinery, because it’s here 
waiting for us to brush our teeth
and stumble into our inheritance.

Rachel Dacus is the author of five novels of magical realism and four poetry collections. Her collections are Arabesque, Gods of Water and Air, Femme au chapeau, and Earth Lessons. Her writing has appeared widely in print and online, in journals that include: Mockingheart Review, Boulevard, Gargoyle, and Prairie Schooner. Dacus’ poems were selected for the anthologies Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, and Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she walks the hills and gets entirely too much fresh air. Visit her at racheldacus.net