Digging time.(Poem)

 
DIGGING TIME 
 
   He always knew when it was digging time 
   by the change of weather 
   and the crops we'd finished 
   picking that season--whose stalks 
   and leaves were left as compost 
   on rows of soil that shone wet with dew. 
 
   Come late autumn, early winter, 
   and my father would begin to dig 
   the soil over once more-- 
   bring to completion the cycle 
   started a year ago in the backyard 
   of the house we called "our home". 
 
   Without either parent saying much 
   the planting of vegetables would 
   soon follow--potatoes, beans, cabbages, 
   ...