Organic Mysticism

This work  responds to the following questions posed by Dr. Jessica Pisano: "Does [food] matter? How does it matter? Why does it matter? Or, why doesn't it?"
It was inspired by the poem Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath.
It was written for, and is devoted to, my chickens. 

Organic Mysticism

Sustenance is spiritual. 

If one holds that life is a worthy thing,

fleeting,

and fundamentally unknowable, 

then sustenance is likewise abstruse. 

For sustenance is derived from life, 

and becomes life,

in an infinite chain of events which summarizes existence and reminds us that we are ever its fellow, its leader, and follower in an infinite circle

greater than death. 

Sustenance is identity.

It builds bodies to bid them find it. 

And crafts rationality for fights, flings, and fellowship over it. 

We are crafted in the image of that which we crave. 

Sustenance is reunion. 

For we,

the eaters,

are even now the eaten. 

Sustenance is respect. 

For if one holds that an individual is of value, 

for if one holds that life -all life- is of value, 

for if one holds that the great bracelet of life, beaded and fragile, is of value,

then one must hold that the fluctuation of these elements is of value. 

That it unifies. 

That it creates. 

And that it is the universal "Us."

Sustenance is law. 

For one takes from another. 

The sun sets. 

The wild scavenge. 

The sun rises. 

The forest quakes again. 

It builds too many predators. 

So, 

by covenant bound,

some die. 

The sun sets again. 

The scavengers bloom on second hand meat, 

and once unsupported, 

by covenant bound, 

their bodies are erased. 

The soil speaks,

and keeps respectfully, 

their memories. 

The sun sets again.