The worms they pilgrimed onward
For a miracle they knew
Had poured from yonder heaven,
Their devotion would be due.
 
Onward! onward! To their harbor,
For the flies already there-
And beetles, bugs, and burglaring birds-
Aren't apt to split their share.
 
They breach the humid surface,
And if worms could smell the boon,
So putrid eyes would water,
And their mouths to follow suit.
 
Upon the breathing soil,
Laid the gift to be endowed,
Rest the relics as two humans,
With the dew their burial shroud.
 
These divine purport immortals
Frequent buried smaller beasts,
Cats and dogs and ferrets,
As they turned, turned into priests.
 
When cradled by First Earth at last,
Man's flesh is strange to find,
Always caged in wooden boxes
Stuck where Chiron cannot mind.
 
What gift! These bones a palace,
Were the maggots shielded nest,
Now caper with young wormlings
On the playground of their flesh.
 
The carcasses forgotten,
None to give a burial place,
Became worms, and flies, and beetles
And the earth's most precious grace.