He Liked his Things to be Alive

He was an alchemist

when there were alchemists

who were deserving of the name.

He worked in malleable substances:

bread dough and mud and clay

had brought him fame.

Others conjured gold from old

abandoned medicines

or pulled the volupté of silk

out of salt hay – but he preferred

incurring births of sentient flesh

out of a mesh of all the better parts

of Earth: mulch and silt

and amber minerals comprised

the heart of his organic arts.

And he would bake them into bread,

or mould them into candlesticks,

or leave them in a cozy lump

and read to them in bed.

He liked his things to be alive.

He didn’t like them dead.

.