Touch the Earth
My Hometown Poem #111
“Get your hands dirty,” I heard someone say today in a business setting. I think they meant to dig into the work, but I quietly rolled my eyes to myself. My mind went straight to images of black soil, land, my grandfather’s gnarled hands, twisted from tireless toiling in fields, planting, harvesting, dust covering his lined face, his worn boots. My grandmother’s knuckles, knobbed from arthritis, legs bowed from bending, tending gardens, slaughtering chickens, cleaning coops. My father’s weathered palms, calloused and worn from handling rope, branding cattle, breaking horses, fixing fence, digging post holes in hard ground. It is one thing to lean into hard work, to search for difficult answers. It is another to sweat for your living: dirt, blood, and grime essential parts of the task. I ask myself now, what does it mean to get my own hands dirty? To embrace labor? To be unafraid of truth? To be relentless? Or to be grateful, humble, to remember sometimes to connect to the ground, to put my hands in clay and loam and rock, to touch the earth, to acknowledge those who do so every day to make a living, to make our way of life.
Once again you have shared your lovely, comforting childhood memories with us which allowed me to take the time to remember the images of my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who were not afraid to get their hands dirty in celebration of the Earth around them.
Thank you, Suzanna.
We were all blessed to watch these workers and work aside them. The tradition of "honest" work may be gone with rich soil blowing away. Some of us still enjoy sharing our garden vegetables with our neighbors and friends and still hear our grandparents voices while having fun in dirt. I truly love your work!!