Skill Set

Pitched quickly from my shovel the brown soil scatters
upon the pile in hopes of re-interment as deeply I set
the manly hole in line across the hillside. Here is the
pipeline set... one by two by ohgodhowmany?

Backgrown crick and groan... I stretch and find my
mind drawn further up the scale of days away in
multi-tasking splendor. Thank god I am not here.

Down goes the tool, up comes the soil and once
again I reach for more to crush and pull.

A skill-set this, when thinking fails me and the
many training vales fail me, I am here... digging
this ditch and pitching a lifetime earned upon
this continuous byre.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner