Digger

 

Digger

I always knew that I was becoming

What I had wanted to be.

By the calouses on my hands

And by the worn curved blade on my trowel.

The blade I used to slice the ground

Soils of colours.

Reddish Browns and greenish greys.

Sands and clays, silts and grits.

To every soil it's own sound

Its own vibration

Resonant with the stroking of my trowel.

Cool damp smells

Are trapped with me

In the bottom of the trench

Chalky bright and clinical

Sand sweet and mellow

Rotting vegetation dark and over ripe

(Passing over quickly the toxic airs I've known)

Sometimes I salivated

When my blade cut through the soil

Like a knife scooping butter

From a butterdish.

( I still do when I think of it)

With warm sunshine on my back

Sound of birdsong in the woods nearby.

My straight sided trench

Spoil tip raised one side

And the grass topping the layers

In the carefully cleaned up section face.

Showing horizontal bands

Of colour and texture

Broken and created

By stones rocks and bricks

The enduring detritus of human habitation

And sometimes monstrous geology.

Occasionally I would find something.

A sherd, a flint, a metal object.

*

I have gathered to me

Soil enough to fill my shovel.

Which I clean and ease

Gently beneath the pile

Careful not to spill a crumb

Unfurling myself

From my crouched position

Lift the shovel by handle and shaft

My body swings with the weight

Stopping at the optimum moment

The soil leaves my shovel

describing an arc in the air

Rising, falling, and landing

On the spoil heap beside the trench .

*

I stand a moment

Watching

Listening

For the view

For the trees

For the birds

*

Sometimes I would find things

Before I'd seen them.

Sometimes a sound or a change in the feel of the soil.

Would waken a sense

Warn me to look again

And something would appear

From the periphery

Of all my senses

Something that

When pointed out of course

Is obvious.

But until the links are made

Pointed up and pointed out

All is utterly invisible.

*

I don't much miss the calloused hands

The straining muscles

And the long muddy walk

Back to the site hut

Now that I'm retired

But those moments

When all my senses worked

In harmony with each other

The sun on my back

The wind through my hair

And the songbirds singing

In the trees across the field... ......


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