time for a little poetry

FAREWELL TO THE EARTH

Christopher James

We buried him with a potato in each hand
on New Year’s Day when the ground was hard as luck,
wearing just cotton, his dancing shoes plus
a half bottle of pear cider to stave off the thirst.

In his *** pocket we left a taxi number
and a packet of sunflower seeds; at his feet was
the cricket bat he used to notch up a century
against the Fenstanton eleven.

We dropped in his trowel and a shower of rosettes
then let the lid fall on his willow casket.
The sky was hard as enamel; there was
a callus of frost on the face of the fields.

Dust to dust; but this was no ordinary muck.
The burial plot was by his allotment, where
the water butt brimmed with algae and the shed door
swung and slammed as we shook back the soil.

During the service, my mother asked
the funeral director to leave; take away some hair
and the resemblance was too close; and yet
my father never looked so smart.

I kept expecting him to walk in, his brow
steaming with rain, soil under his fingernails
smelling of hot ashes and compost;
looking for fresh tea in the pot.

© 2009, The Poetry Society
Publisher: The Poetry Society (website), London, 2009

One of an occasional series of poems (this is No. 3) selected simply because they mention the word 'soil'.

In this poem soil helps to signify death, most likely drawing from the biblical creation story:

"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19)

The second mention of soil perhaps tells us about the character of the dead man; earthy, with few pretensions.

But never mind the references to soil, and biblical allusion - it's a beautiful poem.