The hand shovel bears a singular history
in an era that discounts its simple value.
Neolithic farmers moved dirt
using an ox’s shoulder bone.
Bronze and iron ages brought
wooden handles with metal blades
into the era of roads and canals.
Laborers moved tons of earth
to build railways and fast trains.
My shovel with its curved
and pointed steel plate,
its polished hickory handle,
lifts truth from hidden ground.
Its purpose is not merely defined
by the spreading of ashes,
the movement of gravel over graves,
the flowers it plants, or the foundations
it constructs, the backyards and pathways.
It accompanies me up the garden slope
to excavate the soil’s secrets.
I plunge it into unbroken loam,
imagining mystic blue agates,
the gold and marble cat tombs of Bubastis,
the jeweled crown of Nefertiti,
and find instead, spiders clutching
divine white pearls of silken eggs.
I carry off mounds of clay
that glisten with gray mud
and harden slowly into stone.
Yellow jackets circle a dead robin.
I scoop damp mulch over its torn wings,
while plotting future landscapes,
each motion of shoulders and arms
destined to discover or bury.
