Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my
thumb
The squat pen rests; 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 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, going down
and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato
mould, 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.
