Dan has an MS Degree in Education. He is the author of three poetry Chapbooks, and a book of fiction titled Second Stories.
Shovels
I tell the salesclerk I’m just looking, and like any valued host he says, take your time. You know where to find me. By the way, we have more coming in next week.
I think, “What a good steward.”
The shovels are all stacked in their designated boxes, row, one next to the other, diverse. Some reveal smooth hickory handles from the Richland Company, in Arkansas. Others disclose fiberglass handles, manufactured in Bristol Virginia, yellow and orange. They’re a few short shovels presenting grip handled ends, for a more confident fit, purpose, maybe ambition. The hardware shop boasts square shovels too, for down under the cold, one painted black for trenches that narrow, two that seem serious about shoveling deep snow, with names like Ames, Seymour, and Bond.
Most designed for all sorts of depth, width, and length of what was whole, in advance of shoveling any specification or design of hole. All their resumes nearly perfect, light use, all with warranties ensuring long life or replacement if broken.
Before backhoes, shovels boasted a celebrated reputation, more dignified. In their heyday, they buried the strong, the fragile, even children. Designated duties were somber, yet renowned, performed to honor, often cause for literary mention in poems and novels.
Most contemporary shovels are designed for vocations in mind, less occupation, mainly for renewal as seen in the hardware stores of spring. Chores include the planting of carrots, tomatoes, maybe corn, maybe fill a few post holes.
Or perhaps for digging up the past, so curious children can dream big, to dig clear to China through a pile of sandy loam, or if very lucky, discover the tip of a devil’s horn.
With time, it’s difficult to keep the past covered up, like the real reason for my enthusiastic shoveling, chase for imaginary discovery, so mother could speak to the Chaplin, alone.
In the Civil War, they buried soldiers, and slaves, and elbows and legs, and stallions in fields where fifes played Dixie and drums beat Yankee Doodle Dandy, both instruments loved and hated. In World War two, at Normandy, they buried the honorable, where each spring locals swear not to stare at the hills, because the yellow yarrow will blind you like sun. And in Vietnam they dug foxholes for G.I.’s who lay in a fetus posture, crazed and low through the dawns early light, begging for mother.
As I fix my eyes on the shovels they begin to dim, as a string of fluorescent lights click, switch off, then out, then row, after row, after row, the way the November sentinel moon zigzags and snaps through the tall gaps in the stand of shaky Sycamore, at Arlington Cemetery. Grave row lights switch off, dim, row after row, this way the dead can rest in the dark, not anxious to close a hardware store, to go home with their family. So can they dream, while I do the math of how many shovels that wait their throw will it take to back fill the craters that pock the moon?