What Hides Inside the Compost?

What hides inside the compost until spring is in the air?
Slimy worms that slither through the muck without care,
In tunnels, furry wood mice hurry-scurry to their nest,
They feast upon the eggs of ants that suit their palate best,
Where hibernating crickets bait the maggots of a fly.
It's an anaerobic haven dark black spiders can't deny,
Oozing deep inside the rot the slugs exude with flair,
They hide inside the compost until spring is in the air.

Where beetle troops en mass will fully sate their hungry lot,
A fungus thrives on silage once a plant's life has been shot,
The moss grows fast on seepage as if a casual affair,
Circles of both life and death are swirling everywhere.
Sleeping frogs won't show themselves, survival their concern.
Not until it's warm enough for the hoverflies' return,
Until that day they'll stay away from cold-blooded despair,
And hide inside the compost until spring is in the air.

Winter is long and many are lost before the skies are clear,
So many degrees below zero can freeze the warmest tear,
With might they cling in the pallid light, to be warm once more,
When their struggle for life is through, the soil they'll restore,
Laugh and sing while loitering beside your homestead hearth,
Forget that every life was made from warm wet balls of earth,
Remember their harsh reality, include in your nightly prayer,
Creatures that hide inside compost until spring is in the air.

24 lines

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