Life certainly had to be difficult in the first half of 20th century Ireland. Probably still is. One of my favorite poets is Seamus Heaney. I didn't get around to writing on Sunday, so I am going to let Mr. Heaney take care of this week’s blog. Digging is from Heaney’s second published collection of poems, titled Death of a Naturalist. Digging is one of his most well known works, but one can see why. You can envision his father working the field, backbreaking work to be sure. You understand that this is the way of life in rural Ireland. Anyone who has turned a shovel in the garden can hear the “rasping” Heaney talks about coming from under his window. One can sense the cool and too dry soil the potatoes emerge from. The reader understands the time honored work taking place outside the window, and that Seamus Heaney intends on doing something different.
Seamus Heaney (1939-)
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
