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DIGGING

Seamus Heaney, "Digging" from Death of a Naturalist.
Copyright 1966 by Seamus Heaney.

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Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

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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.



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.

By Flickr user Burns Library, Boston College [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], via Flickr


SEAMUS HEANEY

Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th
century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and
later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of
poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical
depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at
Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry
(1989-1994). He died in 2013.

Poetry Foundation. Seamus Heaney. Retrieved from
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney

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ABOUT THIS PROJECT

This page is dedicated to my father, Michael Joseph Durkan. My father spent much
of his career at Swarthmore College, serving as head librarian and a general
scholar and champion of Irish literature. He hosted Seamus Heaney regularly with
Heaney receiving an honorary degree from Swarthmore in 1994 before going on to
receive the 1995 Nobel Poet Laureate.



Digging was the one poem my father and I spent time reading and discussing.
Digging resonated with me and always makes me think of my father not only due to
the time we spent together but also the content. My ancestors in Ireland raised
cattle, worked the land and were butchers. My father went on to do his own
digging with the squat pen and then the computer, playing an instrumental role
in electronically linking Swarthmore, Haverford & Bryn Mawr College libraries.
I’m off to my own digging in this new age as I construct a creative digital
agency.

Thank you for visiting, I’m glad you are here!

— Niall Durkan