Seamus Heaney seems to use his father's and his grandfather's digging into the homeland ground as a comparison to his writing and development of his poetry. Heaney's father and grandfather use their shovels to work with the land, and Heaney is now using a pen to work on his ideas to write poetry. The beginning of this poem starts out with Heaney describing what he might do before he starts to write a poem. Heaney …showed first 75 words of 1079 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1079 total…except instead of physical labor he uses his thoughts and feelings. Heaney, like his ancestors, has been very successful at his particular career, and he is hoping to be respected by others for his hard work. His career is really not much different than that of his ancestors in the field. Even though he has escaped the physical labor, hard work and "Digging" are still very much an important and required part of his life