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Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Hands Digging Into This Earth

Cool Saturday mornings
in spring
I weed the planter
in blissful silence.

It’s simple,
tactile.

I break the
cold hard ground
and sift the dirt
through my fingers
plucking the weeds
as though they were
errant gray hairs.

The same ground
worked and farmed by
my Mexican ancestors
and the Mestizos before them
and the Indios before them
and the Aztecs…

I am connected
to that eternal continuum
of hands digging
into this Earth.

It is almost
a mindless activity,
peaceful,
this private haven
that I own

and I smile
at my self-deception
and audacity:

to think
I own this land
that was here
long before
all my ancestors

and will outlast us all.

My name’s just
on the deed

for now.

10 comments:

  1. Holy cats, Batman. This is awesome!!!

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  2. Ah.. sometimes we need such activity to get our mind off things.. Beautifully penned, Mosk!❤️

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  3. I so love the feeling of my hands in the dirt and the joy of growing things. We may not own the land, but when we care for it, we are connected to it. I think it is happy with all our helping hands.

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  4. Oh that closing... there is always someone else with bigger hands to grab.

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  5. This poem sounds like the tilling of the soil, the harvesting of the whatevers from the soil. I always wear gloves when I work in the soil - odd allergies. But I love planting my garden and working in it. I do like the continuum in this, the passing of the generations, the only holding the earth in name only - because we all know, the earth owns us

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  6. Delicious simplicity, indeed. I love that last line. We are really all only holding temporary deeds to everything, aren't we?

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  7. Anonymous5:14 PM

    Marvelous flow in your vision

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  8. This is so wonderful <3 'I am connected / to that eternal continuum / of hands digging / into this earth' is a beautiful concept xxx

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  9. Love this, perfect. As if we own anything, what a farce.

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  10. Audacity is the perfect word. We are of a mind on this, though my ancestors farmed the land somewhere Eurpoe or the British Isles.

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