Grave-Digging

It was July. I must have been sixteen or seventeen,

And proud to be chosen for a grown man’s work,

Hollowing out a box of air with a pick and a shovel

While the men above me, my father, grandfather,

And two of the dead man’s brothers who lived nearby

Encouraged me every now and then to take a break

And handed me a bottle of water from the spring.

I worked as fast as I could, squaring the corners,

Loosening the clay with the pick, then heaving it out

With the shovel, while the men talked winter crops

Or kidded me about my girl, who was fine looking

And had recently crossed a threshold and outgrown me.

As I dug deeper the clay got harder, more compacted,

And as I flung it out, some of it came back on me

And got into my eyes, so one of them would lower a hand,

I would clamber out, wash my eyes and start again.

Sometimes I would think of deep ideas as I worked,

Heaven and hell—were they real or only metaphors?

It was sad about Cousin Steve, but he was very old.

Sometimes I would imagine myself Keith Richards

Digging “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” with the shovel,

And this made time speed up until I was driving

Fast through mountain curves to be with my girl.

So I was in two places at once, over my head in the hole

And also kissing her when all of a sudden the ground

Went out from under me, and I was flying up over the edge

Of the grave, I do not think I ever touched bottom.

I breathed hard. I think I even shook, I was so frightened.

But then my father showed me a small, adjacent stone,

The grave of Cousin Steve’s son, stillborn in 1901.

What can we do? I asked. Go back down, he said,

And the brothers kindly nodded their heads.

I had wanted the grave to be formal like a dining room.

I found three buttons, a few shreds of burial cloth,

We all agreed no one ever need hear of this,

And the next day, Wednesday, we buried the father in the son.