My choice for today's poem arose from a conversation with my husband Paul and our three kids about our south facing front garden. It is not a large garden but does occupy a significant part of our front yard and because it brings us joy as much as food, this year we want to expand, again.
The expansion will involve removing the large sandstone foundation stones which provide the frame for our raised beds and pushing them further out into the yard another bed width. Other than playing guitar and singing with our son Lucas I can't think of much that Paul loves to do more than working with the earth. As a greenkeeper he has built sandstone walls, flower beds, bunkers, you name it and he tends it all with a gentle mindset of care taking of the land rather than dominance over it.
He applies the curiosity and craft of an artist to his work.
In this manner he makes me think of our own significantly Celtic ancestry, many of whom tended the land as farmers, as sod turners, as home builders and how true he is to our joint heritage.
Working as a general manager as well as superintendent means that he is not on course as much as he used to be. This strange spring is an exception with he and a bare bones crew of managers (equipment, personnel, finance) working outdoors to tend their property in preparation for a possible opening at some point this summer.
Oddly, not awaking in the wee hours of the morn as he must do for many months of the year and not working the ridiculous amount of overtime he would normally be working by now is granting him the mental and physical space to plan for work on our little front bed and for this I am grateful.
As a nod to all the persons who turn soil to grow our food; who know the feeling of working earth in the fresh air and couldn't live differently even if they had to. For those whose people come from such an earth closeness and live such blessed knowing as understanding and honouring the microbiome of soil.
As well as for the Seamus Heaney's of this world for whom their pen is their implement with which they turn the sod of blindness and highlight the dignity of such work as growing food as well as writing poetry. The need for recognition of both so similar.
Digging by 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
Thank 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.
In warmth,
Jill