Dirt

“Dirt” is a choral piece spoken from the persona of a “we”—those who have worked the land without owning it. The reference to August Wilson at the start of the poem suggests that the speaker is African American, yet the ambiguity of “we” allows the reader to identify the speaker with any group who has been persecuted, enslaved, or denied the ability to own property. In “Dirt,” the speaker laments the atrocities of the past, upholds the value of the land and those who work it, and expresses resilience and a determination that “we” will be able to buy back the land and own “our dirt” again.

The first line presents a paradox: “We who gave, owned nothing” (Line 1). It establishes a truth that seems out of place. In a capitalist economy, those who give typically get something in return. Only those who own things can give them away. To give without owning and to give without getting something in return, violates the rules of the marketplace. This signals that the speaker’s situation is in violation of the norm. It also suggests that those who “gave” were not giving material goods but instead giving of their time and energy, the work of their bodies.

Paradoxically, those who are denied ownership of the land still learn the value of ownership, both by having it taken away from them and by working the land. The poem creates an image of “a man or a woman [standing] / among the unruly growth,” (Lines 3-4) and understanding “the meaning of a name, a deed, / a currency of personhood” (Lines 8-9). The “currency of personhood” (Line 9) is the value ascribed by society to an individual. The people in this poem are considered currency; they are treated like objects to be bought, sold, used, and made to work to make others rich. The speaker explains that it is “fine” not only to work the land and own the land in life but also to “have a plot where / a body may be planted to rot” (Lines 13-14). Being planted in the land after death allows the person who is planted or buried on the land to continue to take possession of it even after death. It implies that they have not only used it in life but that they get to use it after their death and to bestow ownership to future generations, as the final lines of the poem suggest. The term “generation” literally means to create; a thing that is planted generates something new after it has been buried.

Though the speaker reiterates that they have owned nothing of what they have built, they emphasize that they have learned:

the ritual of trees,

the rites of fruit picked

and eaten, the pleasures

of ownership (Lines 17-20).

By working the land, the speaker experiences a sense of ownership that has nothing to do with currency or the deed to the land. They experience the sense of ownership that comes from investing blood, sweat, and effort into something. They get the benefits of their hard work, namely the ability to eat fruit they have grown, to eat the literal fruits of their labor. The speaker may also be referencing the fact that some enslaved people remember life before slavery, saying:

We who

have fled with sword

at our backs know the things

they have stolen from us (Lines 20-23).

This reminds the reader that in the past, many of those now enslaved may in fact have owned their own land and enjoyed the “pleasures of ownership.” From this line forward, the speaker vows to reclaim what they have lost and regain the pleasures of ownership, no matter what it takes:

we

will walk naked and filthy

into the open field knowing

only that this piece of dirt,

this expanse of nothing,

is the earnest of our faith

in the idea of tomorrow (Lines 23-29).

This emphasizes how difficult it is to regain ownership or the right to own something when a person has nothing to start out with. It also points to the strength and resilience of the one thing they do have, which is their own bodies and their ability to work and persevere. The body, like the land, is able to regenerate, and is the precious key to both future harvests and future generations of their people. It requires a lot of tenacity to see that the “expanse of nothing / is the earnest of our faith” (Lines 27-28) and to know they can rebuild a future out of only dirt and the naked body. In the final lines, the speaker suggests this faith is not misplaced and they will triumph, eventually being able to “build new tribes / and plant new seeds / and bury our bones in our dirt” (Lines 32-34).

The final two words “our dirt” emphasizes that in the future, the dirt will belong to the speaker(s) who will finally be able to claim the dirt as their own.