In Ireland in the past the ritual of growing new potatoes was built into the rural way of life.
From generation to generation the same format was utilised. The family's children were included and had an important input into the planting and growing of the potatoes.
The Irish Poet Seamus Heaney has written a most sensitive poem on this annual event which without question fits into the category of a Ritual. It has taken place in rural Ireland for probably hundreds of years and in the same format. Since the middle of the 20th century the ritual is not as closely followed due to the progress of science and technology. His poem is entitled Digging and is set within the generations of the family.
It commences with the words:
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests, snug as a gun.
I see this opening indicating that all is well and relaxed until in the second verse which runs as:
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down.
On looking down the scene rekindles the memory of his father digging the new potatoes, the memory that comes up is from twenty years back and is now happening just as in past years.
The poem continues: Till the straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The course 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
These lines highlight the knowingness of the posture and positioning of the digger in harmony with the placing of the spade deeply into the soil. The next verse is another memory revived that of his grandfather with the following lines:
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. 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 reference to corked sloppily with paper goes back to a time when bottles were re-used over and over again. The cork was soon lost and the next best thing was a sheet of paper rolled tightly and twisted into the bottle. Soon it would have absorbed milk and feel wet and soggy.
The verse gives us bucolic tender images such as:
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.
So the poem ends, with the author recognising that times change, nevertheless life goes on and mankind will continue to dig one way or another. He will dig with his pen, dig deep within himself to find the essence of his future writing. A doctor digs into symptoms and reports to find a diagnosis. A judge will dig into evidence to find the truth of the matter. We all dig in one way or another to find the truth of life. Seamus Heaney in this poem Digging is reminding us that the truth of matter is there for us all to find: 'Through having roots awaken in my head'.
The Poem "Digging" taken from the book: Seamus Heaney New Selected Poems 1966-1987. Faber and Faber. London. With kind permission.
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