I.

It’s a soft night.  Every tree

is leafed out now.  By May 10^th

I’ve cut my grass three times.

Now everyone talks about

getting their grass done. 

............My work friend

told about his son.  This spring

 

            he’s tentative, hands

on a steering wheel – thirteen

and allowed to drive

his grandmother’s riding

mower.  But his attention

wanders and he flattened

a length of downspout

veering across her lawn

to earn fifteen dollars.

 

II.

I went straight home

to cut my grass – beheading

dandelions – then to

the county pool for

Adult Lap Swim.

 

The water left me

oil slow yet light

as pointed seeds,

            and I widened

            to acknowledge

            hidden hundreds

            of miles of roots

and their tiny, fundamental hairs.

 

III.

An overgrown median

            divides Walgreens' lot

from God’s Tiny Angels Daycare.

It was a gyros stand before

and I could see Baby Bouncers

 

parked on the quarry tile floor.

            I parked between

Velveeta colored stripes on

pavement as black as clean bears.

            The store trims with

scratchy, prostrate junipers

            and mulch

yet I stepped along a faint

............trail of clippings.

 

IV.

Security lights came on,

and joined the serrated hum

from the metabolism of fields, fuels

            and engines.

            Their song said:

We are stewards, and children

            all at once

and the arriving night

            can crumble

            hard and bland

into something ribbed and bearable

yawning in stretching ovals,

like fairy tale eyes and mouths

            in bending tree bark.

 

V.

I drove home past dimming yards,

behind a dented beige car

with a lawnmower handle

showing from the trunk.

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