King of the Moss

Peat is the thing.
They knew that then,

my fine Cashel man.
You were king of the moss

the year the harvest failed.
You could not insulate

the people from fear and starvation.
You could offer no permanent root.

So, to maintain the balance,
they sacrificed you to the bog,

and it stored your body,
held your carbon in its heart,

absorbed your soul
against the end of all

things we have lost
to arrogance;

that knowledge, that certainty
that peat is the thing.