Dig here*...

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The worst waste is to miss a sign, and not 

see all the good intent that’s been deployed

to help and aid, abbett, against the rot

that creeps to bring (depressed and quite annoyed)

us to our loved ones to blame & accuse,

instead of grateful for the good that’s poured

on us and all around about - infused

in life & love that we have somehow scored.

Thus heaven’s meta for a  spirit world 

that is to be embodied on  Earth too,

and gifts a goal and path, a gate that’s curled

in wall and opens on a diff’rent view.

And Earth was pointing to something much more, 

We want to start where we are “at”, but don’t 

want us to finish there, at least not sure

of ev’rything we are .. , at this moment.

Have you learned how to tell the diff-er-ence 

between a label and a signpost which 

is pointing farther on, beyond a fence,

& maybe still a ways from where you’d pitch 

your tent, or put your campervan up so

that you could sleep the night and then keep on

with tra-vel-ling the way that you will go

to get where sign is pointing. From here - gone!

This is the gift of metaphor to us.

A culture where a sign can still be read

and understood, without a lot of fuss.

At times we can’t be told  -  we’re only led.

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Footnote

e* - The phrase "dig here" most famously connects to the tragic 1861 expedition of Burke and Wills. When the supply party abandoned the depot camp, they buried supplies and carved "Dig", or “Dig here”, or “Dig”  with a method of pointing (maybe the letters were drawn pointing to a spot, or there was an arrow, etc…?) into the "Dig Tree," pointing to a cache. As I was told in Primary School history lessons, there were two instances when people hoped that the carving of “dig” on the tree would communicate something (to their party, but not to the local Aboriginal people, who could read many more signs & had traversed this land long before, but whose language could not be deciphered and understood as the various signs they hoped  it would  communicate): in the first instance the carving was seen as a sign post telling them what to do and when they did it they found the food, and lived on. This was life-giving and death averting, the other instance was when the same tree was used again for the same purpose months later, but with no additional marks or indications that it was to be seen again as a sign post, in this case they read it as an artifact of their previous saving and missed its use AGAIN as a sign. This instance was life-averting and tragically they died from lack of provisions. I recall this affecting me as a boy, determined to make any signs I left anywhere, to be (able, no, more than that) likely, to be clearly interpreted. (This was edited from an A.I. aided Google Search for “Australian Pioneers & ‘dig here’” to get dates & details, and my primary school history lessons. This story is told differently with different details on different web-sites. But this telling above seems to be in line with most of the facts cited. Interestingly language, is a complex set of signs. Many of their problems were from lack of trust & communication, and Aboriginal tribal attacks for the same reason.  Yet where trust and communication existed, an Aboriginal tracker aided much, & one man, King, was kept alive at the end by local Aboriginal people, who led and looked after him for months until another rescue party found him.

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