Squelch and Slap

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.       
                                          Seamus Heaney, Digging

 Now when I read Seamus Heaney’s Digging, I understand the process that he is writing about: burying the edge of the fork, sometimes rocking back and forth to make it go into the soil, leaning on the wooden handle to unearth the potatoes. We kneel close to the ground, digging through the soil with our hands in search of a flash of red, feeling for the firm roundness of each potato against our fingers.  When looking at the dead outer stem, a blackened thin vine, the discovery of each potato seems unlikely, but this part of the plant is deceiving. You never know how many will be on each plant or what size they will be. This is the thrill of it.  Each one seems to be an unexpected gift—Red Norlands waiting to be discovered with each churn of the soil. Sometimes the potatoes grow in odd shapes, I remember one from last season looked remarkably like a bunny. The discovery of a particularly large potato or one with an odd shape also makes harvesting potatoes exciting. With each thrust of fork, we hope that one red treasure is not pierced straight through with the fork, ruined in a second. While it only happens occasionally, there is always a little sigh of relief when the potatoes are revealed unblemished and still intact.

Seamus Heaney’s Digging is my favorite Ars Poetica, beautifully linking the act of writing with digging potatoes.  He sees digging with his pen as a way to follow his ancestors. In his biography, the poetry foundation mentions that Heaney felt insecure about being a writer in his family of farmers (visit the poetry foundation to read the entire poem and Seamus Heaney’s biography). But this poem seems to reconcile the two worlds.  I can identify with his admiration of the skill of his grandfather. When I look over at the farmers at Rushton, I am often struck by their experienced and efficient ways of farming. Heaney seems to relish the messy nature of harvesting potatoes. The seed potato that you bury when planting each potato often molds and liquid oozes out into the soil, making your hands sticky—

The cold smell of potato mold, 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.