Dirt - a poem by Liam UiCearbhaill

My process for writing poetry is this; I keep a small notepad in my shirt pocket with a handy ball point pen. I put all sorts of things in those notepads, Serial numbers and model of computer equipment I am working on; ideas for stories I want to write; hours I have worked for a single client to be billed later; and poetry. When the muse strikes I want to take advantage of it. Occasionally, if I really like the piece or if I think it is timely, I will post it to my blog or to Facebook right away. More often I leave it on the page and ignore it. Later, when the pages are filled up, I get a new, blank notepad and I go through the old one. I transfer information I want to reference on a regular basis and I carefully transcribe all the poetry to files on my computer (I wish I had done that years ago, I lost a few good poems by not doing that).

I do not remember writing this poem. When I was reviewing poems to include in my revised edition I found this in the files of poems I had transferred from some notepad into the computer. I know it is mine because of where I found it and that it speaks in the poetic voice I have developed. I like it, so I included it in the collection. I hope you like it too!

I welcome comments, shares, subscriptions to my blog, and other signs of approval!

This poem is in the collection Poetry's Purpose

Available for Kindle download at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YX2VZ78

Available in Printed version at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/uicearbhaill

Also available at the Book Juggler in Willits:  http://www.thebookjuggler.com/index.php

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Dirt

The old man watched as the treasured earth slipped through his weathered hand

“’Tis sixty years I’ve walked these fields and tilled this patch of land

Since first my father said to me ‘Dirt is the stuff of life.

Husband it well, My Joy, My Son, and take the land to wife’”

He slowly stood with the ache of years and the glow of a man content.

“I’ve kept it well and my grandson now will keep it when I am spent.

I never thought of the land as mine, though my name is on the deed.

I’m only the one who tended the soil, in springtime spread the seed.

It belonged, I thought, to my great-grandson, and those who will follow him

I’ve kept it in trust for the sons of sons”, he said with an ancient grin.

I looked at the dirt, with its crust of frost, beneath that stark blue sky.

I thought of the man and his years of care and the future alive in his eye,

“But shall the world still be here when your great-grandson is old?

Or shall we have made it a barren waste, polluted and lifeless and cold?”

“Life can be found in this frozen soil, and hope can be found in Man.

We simply must live for our great-grandsons and husband for them the lands.”