When I began to dig

Abstract

When I began to dig Martha Silano (bio) this is what I found: from the Latin, vertere,to turn, from the Lithuanian, versti, to overturn, from the Sanskrit, vartate, he turns. Vers, fers:turning, turning and bending, having planted a length of beans or corn, having reached a furrow'send. Like a plowman, versing, this breaking up of sod, this fashioning into tidy rows, helping the singersrecall their lines. When the need to memorize disappeared, verse remained like the typewriter keysspelling QWERTY, slowing the typist down. When I began to dig, I found turn, turn back, be turned, convert, transform,be changed. From wert: to wind, its cognate weard (turned toward). When I began to dig I unearthedwyrd (destiny, fate), found what befalls one, reached down, pulled up Turn! Turn! Turn! A Pete Seeger tune,a psalm. From Slovenia to Wales, from Greece to Ireland: turn, turn, stir, ladle, become. This verse,this versus, likened to conversion, a breather, a fresh start. Poet, like a plowman in a fieldwith his furrowed words, looking for a good excuse to put up his brow, wipe his feet, reward herselffor making it this far. When I dug I found porridge, bread (barley and rye), lentils, peas, eggs. Not muchmeat. Small amount of vegetables and fruit. I found [End Page 54] oats; I found ale. What the digging revealedwas a single word meaning destiny and clean slate, befalling fate yoked to the notion of free will.To translate, become someone or something else. In that plowman's act, an apparent contradictionas great as any yin and yang, koan-like conundrum, that when we don binoculars to study a commonword, English sparrow of the lexicon, we find the link between poetry and confrontations large and small—tournaments, showdowns, battles—between a book of poems, and Sunday's nail-biting match-upbetween the Seahawks and the Panthers. Versus, a word connecting whatever force, power, or godhanded Marshawn Lynch his strength, his knack for eluding the tackle, his Shakespearean grace,and the task of the poet: to bury the weeds; to disembalm the knotted, entwining roots,the richest loam. To make, of the oldest question, a song: are we free or are we not? [End Page 55] Martha Silano Martha Silano is the author of What the Truth Tastes Like (Two Sylvias Press, 2015), Reckless Lovely (Saturnalia Books, 2014), The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception (Saturnalia Books, 2011), Blue Positive (Steel Toe Books, 2006), and, with Kelli Russell Agodon, The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice (Two Sylvias Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, AGNI, and Best American Poetry, among others. She edits the Seattle-based journal Crab Creek Review and teaches at Bellevue College. Copyright © 2017 Middlebury College Publications