THE GRAVEDIGGER’S HANDS

One comes to know
the texture of the earth

moving and re-moving it
in turns.

Hardpack and mud-slush
shovel full and bucket

with hands coarse and
calloused, like the knots

and burls of
an ancient tree

grown hoary with
age and weather

grown strong with
unceasing labor.

The gravedigger’s hands
hold a memory

and a feeling for
forgotten things

and the cold-gray
logic of the stone.

The gravedigger’s hands
can offer no redemption

but can and will
fulfill one’s final need.

–Excerpt from Paper Boats, Poems by Steve Luttrell (Igneus Press, 2024)