Ode to Earthworms
End Times and the Moon

by: Louisa Loveridge Gallas

O, savior with five hearts,
you nourish the soil
to birth our earth’s flesh,
otherwise we become
desert or rock,
a dark stone
like the moon
except with no sun,
no borrowed light,
rolling on a lonely course
in anonymous orbit.
And yet! Might the sun
gift us generously also?
Perhaps our happy fate
when all species meet
Earth’s End Times,
a destruction so complete
even the planet
cannot resurrect,
is to be dead yet
become a moon,
companion, soulmate
for our singular moon
who long ago lost
her sister moons.
How redeeming to feel
our planet will have an afterlife
once we’ve accomplished
extinction so total
even the soil
may not replenish.
To be
a stone in space,
circling with another stone
both shining, sharing
false light, giving
our loyal moon,
who cycled endlessly
for us,
a love life.