Blogger’s Note: It’s a rare thing that I post twice in one day, but this has been percolating in my head for a few days now. Then earlier today, my friend at the Tales from the Domestic Church blog posted on Facebook that the spring air outside her office smelled “delicious.” We’re along way from flowers here, and though I appreciate the early (or earthy) signs of spring as much as anybody, decay doesn’t smell delicious. It smells like BRAAAAAINS!

Decease and Persist
Grey clouds spit chill drizzle on blackening snow;
Bare trees creak and clatter in scattering breeze.
Last leaves of past autumn tear, tumble, and blow —
And something undead stirs below.

The preening of songbirds begins in this cold.
Spring cleaning takes root in the richness of rot.
Aroma of flesh-fertile humus and mold —
Wet corpse-fed worm-fodder of old.

A fragrance of vagrants, impure and unclean;
Stiff leavings of winter now soften and spoil.
It rises but slowly, it’s smelt before seen;
The reek gives new meaning to green.

From ’neath this foul blackness we watch it arise;
Once-dead fingers scrabble from shadowy grave.
The zombie Earth lurches, blinks dirt from its eyes —
And stretches pale limbs toward the skies.

As swiftly the drifts turn to droplets and drown
What passes for life beneath Winter’s hard thumb,
With mindless persistence and sunblinded frown —
The dead rises up from the ground!