The Rake
One morning we dug forty one trenches for paths in beds of freshly tilled soil A bright line of thread marked each one—to keep them straight The idea was to drag the dirt from the upper path down to the lower bed making path and pile of soil in one movement And about noon my hands began to cramp after bringing the soil out of fifteen or so hundred foot long paths. So as we opened the paths, and piled up the beds, I thought about things— Like how to hold a handle best and switching sides But no matter what, things begin to hurt And some part of me says it can’t go on But that part always fades into the background behind lines of thoughts— Like what I did a year ago, how I can’t handle so and so or what someone said How angry I am about certain things Or how sad I am about others But after a while these thoughts stop too, and I hear things And smell the dirt and notice the breeze whistling in the hoophouses nearby Or the seagulls chasing each other Or see metal rake tines pulling gently through soil
We kept going after lunch, moved onto another field I drank water, the ducks had a meeting, the seagulls fought, and I thought: are we filling the world only with beings as adaptable as us? And filling the remainder with anxiety about perishing which keeps it all moving.
The point I’ve found is not to worry about anything I can’t hold in two hands Because it’s impossible to know how to help any of that out there It’s hard enough to help myself, and those around me The wide world we’re told is saveable and helpable is a distraction from what you can do
A rock catches in my rake And must be knocked free with another And I think how my bones themselves won’t last as long as any rock I turn up I won’t be around to see what happens to what I love At least, I consider, I can know what my own hands hold.
I come back to the raking, and my visions clears, I look down at the ground, at my dirty shoes and patched pants, at my hands which are strong and rough but somehow more useful and careful. And I am sad, for they grip nothing that I thought of— only the long, straight, smooth wooden handle of a rake.