Heavy, wet clay sticks to every space, molding to each movement. Air is utterly void here, yet the weighty material cushions each speck of iron, surrounding it so fully without  strangling it. Everything is slowed into a calmness. Water drips from above, absorbing into the porous clay and snatching it before any escapes to the jagged, rough bedrock below. Nothing is free from the indiscriminate thickness, not even the gleaming minerals that speckle the deep mat clay, not even the fraying ends of thick roots. Penetrating the viscous layer, roots anchor here, revelling in the stability of the clay and the moisture it grasps so tightly. Here, everything moves in tandem–never traveling any true distance–only readjusting into a new position as one shifts in sleep until they settle comfortably into a tranquil stillness. 

A swift sense of falling shakes any notion of soothing sleep. Once thick and water-swollen roots led into thinner, branched systems through which water skips lightly over each sand grain, grasping the clays and minerals as it leaves as swiftly as it came. With a dryness in the water’s wake, a lightness encapsulates the space, allowing room for air to permeate–in full, sandy breaths–without the constraint of a tight cushioning embrace of the layer before. Here, movements, materials, and positions are not permanent or searing with each shift ushering in a renewed condition. The forgiving hands of the silt allow everything from minerals to water to pass through it, but collecting nothing in excess leaves roots seeking the water and nutrients the sand so effortlessly gives away. Such is the balance: with the freedom of movement comes scarce resources, yet it is scarcity without ensured demise as roots are held in stable tight grasps in the wet clay below and life filled layers above. 

An uneasy balance is intertwined between the delicate roots of new saplings and the plunging roots of aged trees. With the aerated lightness of sand yet hydrated presence of nutrients, sun gleams through the warm brown soil onto creatures in constant motion. Something slimy brushes by letting its long body wrap everything in a quick embrace, as dark soil disappears into its mouth beginning its sinuous wave through the body. With its travel through the earthworm, the dirt adjusts around the worm, creating a clear path for its continued motion, continued consumption. New paths decorated with a kaleidoscope of broken leaves with sharp edges protruding into all directions are met with a rich ooze that ends the dirt’s undulating dance with the animal. Despite their edges, the leaves’ shards are subdued by the coating mucus, and despite all this commotion–the dirt disappearing into earthworms, milapids, rollypollies, and the like–the soil continues to grant pathways and space for more motion as roots of all varieties begin their journey for nutrients and stability. 

Independent paths that spray within the soil converge gradually into a thick trunk that gasps for air. Remaining hidden beneath the ground, wild roots fan out from the tree, grass, flowers now decorating the land. They sway so freely with each gust of wind and tip so subtly as a rabbit trots through the field or a bee lands on a petal. What remains inescapable is the slithering contact with tough shells of beetles or the slippery yet ringed body of worms. Moving endlessly in the soil, they feed and burrow alongside the minerals and leaves. 

Yet something is different…rising to the surface, the beetles, earthworms, milapids, and rollypollies travel together to begin their feast. Laying amidst their crowding and crawling is a body of only flesh and quite a bit of bone. Curved grass shields them from view, bandaging the cut skin. The soil sinks under their weight, absorbing their weight in a damp embrace. The animals eat and eat, harvesting all the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and more. Satisfied and full, the soil welcomes them home and with them comes all that they reaped. Excreting their meal, roots eagerly prod until they savour each atom, molecule, and drop. Standing just a little bit taller, growing just an inch upward, gleaming just slightly brighter, blades of grass and trunks of trees whisper the softest songs of gratitude as they wrap their hands closer around the body, welcoming it home to a future feeling each breeze, trot, and buzz of the bees, for it is this life and its passing that feeds our world continuously.