Poem - MAG Poetry Prize 2010
Allotment
by
Aberdeen, UK
We were digging that too heavy earth too long,
Too long and at the wrong time –
Days of rain had made a world of clay that clung
To our spades, gripped like misery. Why were we
Digging so long and so late?
It was autumn, it was night; I cannot see
My father beside me even in memory.
Why was it he would not stop
And scrape our spades’ steel faces clean on the heel
Of his black boot? What kept us from home? What
Use was I there, as if
With a toothpick to roll a weight that felt
The great drowned deadweight of the globe? The dark
Above and below was one
Clay that fastened leaf and root. Bright canopies of oak
And beech repeat themselves inside the soil;
Behind the eye the brain’s white
Branches work so hard to right the world. Who is still
In that allotment, speechless, boy or man in the dark?
Finding or burying I
Did as I now would: leaned blind into the work.
Added: 31.03.2010
05.05.2010
This is a really well-constructed poem. Good use of imagery.