SHUT UP AND DIG

I always wanted to be an archaeologist

or a paleontologist with a little pick and

trowel in their holsters on my belt. I had

a friend in Tennessee who was one and had

boxes of brown pottery shards on shelves

in his shop collecting dust. He said “these

are three thousand five hundred years old.”

I fondled them.

I don’t know what it is about me, but I always

check the details, the lay of the land, where are 

the mounds, the water; where would shelter lie? 

Or, like Papa taught me on one of those treks to 

to find fossils under a river bank, or in the gravel, 

crinoids and petrified wood. Once we even found

a huge nautilus sticking out of in a boulder, the 

nacre still as iridescent as how we felt.

I don’t know why I need to know my origins.

Maybe then I can find myself. I told my friend,

“if I ever get to Great Britain, Cornwall, Scotland,

Castle Edzel the home of my people, I’m going to

strip naked and wallow in the dirt to absorb as

much of the bloody soil as my skin can hold,

I’ll eat some of it, maybe one of the atoms will 

stick itself in my heart. I’ve got a forbear

who crossed the Channel in 1066, maybe it’s

an atom of his, left behind at a campsite.

These days, I try to pull it all together, figure out

if any of it means anything. I write a little, take out

my trowel and pick to go digging around in my head 

to see what I think, to find the words I’ve collected

in boxes all my life, blow the dust off and study

each for nuances and hints of its carbonaceous

beginnings. There is a lot of chert to dig through

and clay to find just the right flake of flint or quartz,

even gold, like that time I came across an ancient

Roman artifact in a column, “acetabulum,” a cute little 

bowl for sipping vinegar. Vinegar! If I drank so much 

of that, it had to have its own cup, I'd want to go out,

kick a*s and conquer the world, too.

I keep my treasures on shelves for easy access 

with my trowel thesaurus, and dictionary pick.  

I study and wonder at all the discoveries of 

those who went before, their collections from 

long, deep excavations, put together in stunning 

displays. There are so many, and they have been 

at it forever, folks like Ovid, Eliot, Frost,

and Mary Arnold, they know where we are and

where we came from. If you are interested, you

can find their reports in any library. You might

even find something of yourself in there.

Copyright,

Vol Lindsey

06/15/2025

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

I understand, I really understand because I live in Dorset, England, within the Jurassic coastline, also, walked much of it over the years. Since a child, with siblings and friends have seen, searched for and found all sorts of fossils, eg ammonites; shared their look and feel with teachers, experts and others - always feeling proud as punch! Have been to eg. Charminster to have a little something recognised as being a trilobite or whatever. It's been, always would be - a wonderfully exciting event to find something that I couldn't count to for its original age! Think the name Mary Anning..

I understand how you feel, have since little and will until whenever comes! We should all understand and remember that wherever we walk we walk over Man's history at different depths of Time!

YOUR interest and its magic is mine, sir. Ooops, by the way think book and movie of 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' and you will learn a little more of the area. In the advertising of the latter, Meryl Streep is standing on and looking from our famous cobb! :)

[Vol]

EmmaJoy,
I find it odd that there are people devoid of curiosity about real things... "WHO AM I? WHERE DID I COME FROM? HOW DID I GET HERE? WHY DO I THINK THIS WAY? WHY DO OTHERS SEE THE SAME WORLD SO DIFFERENTLY? The walls of my world are papered in questions of the mind, heart, and soul, Oh my goodness is it a fun place to live!
I will Lok for your "cob?" not wure bwhat that is, but, as mentioned, I am always curious.
Vol

[Lorry]

If you ever do get over here Vol, check out the blood soaked soil of Bannockburn. It is the only place I have ever been that has been completely unnerving. Even tourists and foreigners that know nothing about its history feel it in their mind and bones.
It's understandable for Scotsto feel it, as it is the location of our first battle of independence, where many died slow and painful deaths, but for the likes of passing hikers to be unnerved by a sense of dread when passing is another thing entirely that knew nothing of its history.
I've even heard of hikers taking miles long detours to avoid the area.
And no one can tell me that those blood soaked fields don't retain a memory of it all.
And nice tryVol, but not a one of us is buying it. If you weren't such a poet you could have just came straight out and admitted you wanted to be Indiana Jones! 😃

[Lorry]

Ps... almost forgot...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn

[Vol]

Lorry,
Who Me? Indana Jones? Ha! That wimp? Nope, I'm more a Guy Fawlkes, type... And YES, I would eat of that soil! I would breathe the air as deep as lungs allow, and hang my head for those in their barrows. I am addicted to my past, their past, and thre past in general... I don't care what the quantum folks say "The past is as indeterminate as the future." I feel like doing something... join a game of Kirkwall Ba, toss a Caber, find what's under that lass's Kilt... Lock myself in an echo chamber full of Bagpipe players! Bring it on! Indiana? Im a TEXAN... AND a Scott!
Vol

[Lorry]

An echo chamber of bagpipe players? Na mate, you're a masochist! 😃