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  • Digging by Seamus Heaney

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    Digging, poem, seamus, heaney, irish

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    Digging, poem, seamus, heaney, irish

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    357 views1 page

    Digging by Seamus Heaney

    Uploaded by

    Romina Andra
    Digging, poem, seamus, heaney, irish

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Digging

    Between my finger and my thumb


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

    Between my finger and my thumb


    The squat pen rests.
    I’ll dig with it.

    Seamus Heaney, "Digging" from Death of


    a Naturalist.

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