Poem: "Dirt and Nails"

[ysabetwordsmith]

Name: ysabetwordsmith
Story: An Army of One
Colors: Vellum #18 "Hand"
Styles/Supplies: None
Word Count: 335
Rating/Warnings: PG; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Sam the Gardener thinks back to growing plants on a planet, and thinks ahead to growing them in space.
Note: An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space is about a group of neurovariant people who establish a society of their own between the galactic arms. This is sociological science fiction with some crossover into military SF.


"Dirt and Nails"


Sam remembers when everything was simpler,
before he learned all about data collation,
before he joined the war
and then the secession.

He remembers living on a planet,
where a garden was a thing of dirt and nails,
raised beds and rabbit invasions,
rather than bits and bytes
rendered on a screen of many colors.

There was a feed & seed store
in the little town where he lived,
where they used to go for garden supplies;
he can still recall the rich thick scent of it,
dusty seed potatoes and bags of grain,
paper packets of corn tied with string
and labeled in a neat hand.

Sam worries about the transfer,
although he tries not to show it --
Miles and the OCS-397
have granted him every courtesy
while carrying him to Supply Base Bounty 3D3N --
but it gnaws at him anyway,
like a worm at a root.

He fidgets with his hands,
which are clean now
and have been for years,
no fertile crescent of earth
ground beneath the nails.

Everyone and everything
depends on him now,
and he's never done more than
putter with hydroponics,
hasn't touched trowel to topsoil
in longer than he can recall.

The perilous novelty of this situation
intimidates him in ways he cannot articulate,
but it bears down on him, inescapable as the rain.

Sam fiddles with the files
that he has collected on gardening,
filling his head with familiar data
as a distraction from these unfamiliar days.

Soon, too soon,
the jumpship will dock
at the supply base and they will
expect him to do what he's come to do.

For now, though,
he can lose himself
in the memories of living
on a planet whose black earth
answered to his hand, all written out
in the pages of an almanac, on seed packets,
the lines left by a rake dragged over smooth soil.

There will be time enough,
later, to face the new memories
that he must make.

Comments

[bookblather]

I like how he focuses on tactile memories to keep himself from worrying.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Neurovariant people often develop specific techniques for self-soothing so that they don't overload. They often need physical stimulation of the senses, but some can do it from memory. It's why Sam likes gardening, though: he finds it calming to touch plants and soil.