Between my finger and my thumb <br />The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. <br /> <br />Under my window, a clean rasping sound <br />When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: <br />My father, digging. I look down <br /> <br />Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds <br />Bends low, comes up twenty years away <br />Stooping in rhythm through potato drills <br />Where he was digging. <br /> <br />The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft <br />Against the inside knee was levered firmly. <br />He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep <br />To scatter new potatoes that we picked, <br />Loving their cool hardness in our hands. <br /> <br />By God, the old man could handle a spade. <br />Just like his old man. <br /> <br />My grandfather cut more turf in a day <br />Than any other man on Toner's bog. <br />Once I carried him milk in a bottle <br />Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up <br />To drink it, then fell to right away <br />Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods <br />Over his shoulder, going down and down <br />For the good turf. Digging. <br /> <br />The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap <br />Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge <br />Through living roots awaken in my head. <br />But I've no spade to follow men like them. <br /> <br />Between my finger and my thumb <br />The squat pen rests. <br />I'll dig with it.<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/digging-8/
