Between my finger and my thumb
\nThe squat pen rests; snug as a gun.<\/p>\n
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
\nWhen the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
\nMy father, digging. I look down<\/p>\n
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
\nBends low, comes up twenty years away
\nStooping in rhythm through potato drills
\nWhere he was digging.<\/p>\n
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
\nAgainst the inside knee was levered firmly.
\nHe rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
\nTo scatter new potatoes that we picked,
\nLoving their cool hardness in our hands.<\/p>\n
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
\nJust like his old man.<\/p>\n
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
\nThan any other man on Toner\u2019s bog.
\nOnce I carried him milk in a bottle
\nCorked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
\nTo drink it, then fell to right away
\nNicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
\nOver his shoulder, going down and down
\nFor the good turf. Digging.<\/p>\n
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
\nOf soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
\nThrough living roots awaken in my head.
\nBut I\u2019ve no spade to follow men like them.<\/p>\n
Between my finger and my thumb
\nThe squat pen rests.
\nI\u2019ll dig with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}