Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

As you know, if you listened to yesterday's episode, then you know that this is Seamus Heaney Week here on the podcast.

He died six years ago on August 30th. There's a new collection now that his family

put together that spans his lifetime, called 100 poems. And I want to read one more of the

earlier poems to you. And then we'll read Thursday and Friday. I read a couple of poems that are

later in his career. So this one is called digging,

and it was from around the same time as the poem that I read yesterday,

Death of a Naturalist.

It goes like this.

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

gravely ground. My father digging. I look down till his straining rump among the flower beds

bend low, comes up 20 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.

My grandfather caught more turf in a day than any other man on toner's bog.

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