In memory of days gone by/
no more will Dee and Carol shovel snow
on Colton Street/
Carol's house is on the market
as is ours
and there will be no maintenance
now/
Carol's late husband Joe,
the lawnist
shoveled his last snowfall
and mowed his last criss-crossed
lawn some years ago/
Carol kept the standards/
women doing mans' work/
all that is over now/
or soon will be.
....................
To Joe:
THE LAWNIST
The tuneless tantalizer is at his tiny tines again,
showing our one-block-long street
how to wrap our leaves; how
in the face of raw nature's fluttering intrusion
never to sound lawn-care retreat!
Yes, it's true, the lax commoner rakes his leaves
to curbside and waits for the city vacuum patrol
to eventually come and suck up the sans-vivid color artifacts,
but a true Lawnist - and he is one - cannot countenance the slug's delay; in
leaving leaves to new wind, the requisite re-rakes bereave the rascal's eves.
Moreover, he's almost, have we not noticed? got his grass
golf course grandiose, great!
The perfect shade of green and blade count per square inch
so close to being on the weedless button,
albeit by means of contracted and self-ministrations
of many merchanted murderlizers
and species-endangering spuriosities. That
and his criss-crossing, thrice-weekly mowing patterns
are to me a head-in-the-grass reality avoidance, a harm, and an ill-begotten
yawn. Thus, The Lawnist packages leaves that aren't even his,
some of them,
in plastic drawstring pajama bags
and trucks them elsewhere to sleep, city dumped.
Fast, before the vacuum truck might traumatize his pedigreed
grass roots
with too much harsh suction. He's invested too much of himself
in his monk-cell-sized tract that way to be trumped.
Soon snow will fly, another of his property blights
which will demand of his ordered lawn creed
incredulous shovel-rounded banks
at his sidewalk's rulered edge, no matter how deep the snow becomes.
But I in an unthrown spirit of slowly mown grass
and eternally shifting leaf piles
will offer my counterpoint of a jagged serpentine snow lane, a studied randomness
garnering from the grumpen Lawnist neither a summery hello
nor a wintery thanks!
The tuneless tantalizer is at his tiny tines again,
showing our one-block-long street
how to wrap our leaves; how
in the face of raw nature's fluttering intrusion
never to sound lawn-care retreat!
Yes, it's true, the lax commoner rakes his leaves
to curbside and waits for the city vacuum patrol
to eventually come and suck up the sans-vivid color artifacts,
but a true Lawnist - and he is one - cannot countenance the slug's delay; in
leaving leaves to new wind, the requisite re-rakes bereave the rascal's eves.
Moreover, he's almost, have we not noticed? got his grass
golf course grandiose, great!
The perfect shade of green and blade count per square inch
so close to being on the weedless button,
albeit by means of contracted and self-ministrations
of many merchanted murderlizers
and species-endangering spuriosities. That
and his criss-crossing, thrice-weekly mowing patterns
are to me a head-in-the-grass reality avoidance, a harm, and an ill-begotten
yawn. Thus, The Lawnist packages leaves that aren't even his,
some of them,
in plastic drawstring pajama bags
and trucks them elsewhere to sleep, city dumped.
Fast, before the vacuum truck might traumatize his pedigreed
grass roots
with too much harsh suction. He's invested too much of himself
in his monk-cell-sized tract that way to be trumped.
Soon snow will fly, another of his property blights
which will demand of his ordered lawn creed
incredulous shovel-rounded banks
at his sidewalk's rulered edge, no matter how deep the snow becomes.
But I in an unthrown spirit of slowly mown grass
and eternally shifting leaf piles
will offer my counterpoint of a jagged serpentine snow lane, a studied randomness
garnering from the grumpen Lawnist neither a summery hello
nor a wintery thanks!
