WORM, a Poem by Gail McConnell

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Rose at Imagine the Possibilities. Thank you, Rose, for hosting here https://imaginethepossibilities.blog

On a road trip Delaware this summer, I bought this book. It’s a poetry anthology with useful insights on each poem by poet Pádraig Ó Tuama.

In Ó Tuama’s anthology, I discovered a poem by Gail O’Connell that expresses the gratitude I hope everyone might feel for the humble Earthworm. Some might find this subject creepy and the life of an earthworm not worth poetry. But that isn’t true, in my opinion.

When I was about ten, I used to go out in our yard after a summer rain with my brother and catch earthworms that were lounging on the grass. We sold them to a sports store across the street, never fully appreciating their genius. 

WORM
BY GAIL McCONNELL

Burrowing in your allotted patch you
   move through the dark, muscles contract one by one

in every part, lengthening and shortening
   the slick segmented tube of you, furrows in your wake.

Devising passages for water, air,
   you plot the gaps that keep the structure from collapse.


READ MORE HERE: https://onbeing.org/poetry/worm/

This poem made me wonder why we can be more like earthworms. We might think we are more advanced, but when it comes to the future, are we?

EARTHWORM ENVY
(After the poem WORM, by Gail McConnell)

How wise they are 
to burrow and recycle, 
leaving their patch of earth 
          a better place.

Brilliant, 
worthy of emulation, 
even if they
are (unlike us?)
not much to look at.  


© Janice Scully 2023

The helpful but homely earthworm

14 thoughts on “WORM, a Poem by Gail McConnell”

  1. Yes, we would be wise to think like earthworms in our treatment of Earth. Thanks for sharing your poem, Janice.

  3. How wise they are, indeed, Janice. I love the poem and your response, and this: ” Eating the world, you open it.” When I taught my class was in charge of the worm bin (we had a school garden) so these poems would have been wonderful to share. Yes, they are so important to our earthen world. Thanks for finding the poem and then responding!

  4. Janice,
    I like earthworms too! I taught several groups of students in my garden club over the years about their habits, life cycles, and ways they help the soil. I wish I had been as creative as Gail McConnell. Her poems are accurate scientifically and might even cause a little love for the worm! Thanks for sharing these!

  8. Thanks for shining your light on the “lowly” earthworm by sharing Gail McConnell’s poem and your own. Like others, I especially love the line, “Eating the world, you open it.” I learned, not long ago, that earthworms are actually invasive (at least in my neck of the woods). This was counter to all my “helpful” earthworm beliefs and adds yet another facet to the topic.

  9. I love this book! (I might need to do another daily bit-at-a-time read-through.

    I love this poem! Especially “Eating the world, you open it.”

    And I totally agree with your Earthworm Envy. We would do well to get over ourselves and be more like other inhabitants of this planet who improve it rather than wrecking it.

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