You’ll dig your hole with teaspoons, thimbles, pins.
Get started soon. It’s going to take a while.
You get an inch and then the rain begins.
You dig a year and make a little pile.
At least the music’s pretty good. It ends
When digging stops. You want to dance, but then
It’s silence all around, and that just sends
You back to dig the endless earth again.
The hole is big enough to hold your foot.
You take a break. You’ve done enough. It’s earned.
Or so you hope. You wonder where you put
The pin. The rain is gone. The sun has burned
Your face, then clouds, and then cold rain again.
You free a worm. You pull it out and throw
It on the pile. It wriggles in, and when
You look again, it’s gone where you will go,
Beneath the heavy world you learned to love,
To join the ones who dug before, those who,
With care, taught you to dig while here above,
As if it’s all you’re really born to do.
Source: Nimrod Magazine