Tanka Prose

THE DIG   

Day 1:

 

An orange earth digger, jack hammers, men with shovels in yellow vests and hard hats —all here to replace a faulty water line. Get my car out of my garage and park in the visitors’ parking, I’m advised. No need. Decide to cancel plans made earlier. Will go out tomorrow.  Bad decision, that.  As holes gets deeper, dirt mounds get higher. No way into my condo, no way out.  After some hand wringing, a path is cleared. Can now get to mailbox across the road. However, there is no mail because the mail truck cannot get past the equipment and barricades.  At the end of the day, a gaping hole at the bottom of my driveway covered over with a flimsy board and blocked by orange and white bars attached to orange cones.  Oh, my! How they do love orange.

 

lives lived,

long before memory,

deeply buried

till a random hoe or spade

frees a shard of mystery

 

Day 2:

 

More digging. A new area under my window. Out comes the grass. Out comes the spirea bush. Out come my white lilies which took two years to bloom. I look down and see only a hard hat. China appears to be the destination.  The earth digger extends its teeth, bites into new territory,  chews its way along the road past the next condo unit. Clunk, clunk. clunk. The show is only minimally mesmerizing. Time for a relaxing cup of herbal tea. Choking sounds from the faucet. Water has been turned off. Fortunately, I have a kettle full of water. With my tea and a book, I retreat to the living room and a comfy chair away from the clunking of the earth digger.  At the end of the day, there are two deep craters and a long trench, but I have water.

 

digging through time

finding bits of this and that

trash and treasures

writing tales of how it was,

how we think the pieces fit

Day 3

 

The  hole under my window is filled in. The hard hats move down along the trench. The earth digger returns to crater number one. It gets wider, deeper. A workman tells me water will be off.  I fill the kettle.  I will have my tea.  Didn’t think about the cleaning woman due in a couple of hours.  Should have filled buckets. She arrives, having walked from visitors’ parking.  Turns on faucet. Sputters. Spits. Hisses. Water still off.  Just dust and vacuum I tell her.  She takes two buckets and talks to the hard hats. One stalwart fellow leaps the trench, takes the buckets and goes down the road,  past the trench, and returns with water.  Cleaning of my condo continues. Meanwhile, hard hats take a lunch break. Begin to wonder how long will my driveway end at the lip of a canyon. Begin to wonder if I should send out a SOS to my family.  Three o’clock. Hard hats have been moving rapidly this past hour.  No need to alert family. The driveway crater is filled and dirt leveled. I can take my car out. The trench under my window is covered with boards and marked with orange cones.  Piles of rocks are loaded into a truck and hauled away. The earth digger is parked and the road is quiet. 

 

tagged and labeled

each item in a ledger

nothing left ignored

history in a  bowl,

a trinket or a cup

 

Day 4

 

All quiet on the cul-de-sac. No earth digger, no hard hats. Nothing. Nada. The dig is a work in progress, and progress is slow.

 

showcased in museums

photographed and discussed

the past brought forward

to question and to learn

and find a better way

Cattails June 2023