underground

As bloodless as a pearl
ground into dust
salting the earth
with an invisible promise
that the gates were never locked-
and that all we sought
grew under these trampled feet
and that under those cataract clouds
immutably blind
to our thirst for rain
(perhaps in disdain of our shapeshifting guile,
of prostrations made
and wages gained
"entirely" in their name)
all the while
their refusal
only forces our hands -
more cracked and brittle
than the earth we till -
deeper into the dirt
we so vacantly,
vagrantly tread
pushing the seeds
sewn so long ago
away from the dusty,
windswept surface
deeper
and deeper still
until
we strike on hidden
jeweled petals
sprouting gems of dew
rusty and wrapped in velvet dirt
a thousand fold more nourishing
than their freely offered fruit.