The Perfect Lawn - May 13 2023

 

The Perfect Lawn

May 13 2023

The perfect lawn

is succulent

verdant

barefoot.

Jewelled drops of dew

rainbow in the sun.

A sprinkler circles,

phhht-phhht-phhhting

its graceful arc

of cool spray.

The reassuring rhythm

I fondly recall

as the soundtrack of summer.

The small suburban ranch

sprawls in a vast field

of emerald grass.

A waste of land, some would say,

a toxic monoculture.

But when I see the children

turning cartwheels

like effortless sprites,

skipping double dutch

and chanting nonsense rhymes,

its beauty

is undeniable.

All that work

keeping a perfect lawn.

And the “keep off” sign

blithely disregarded.

The verdant carpet

is too inviting to ignore.

So I play along,

stretching out

under a warm summer sun,

luxuriating

in the lawn's cool softness.

My scofflaw inner child

   —  who hasn't made an appearance

since who knows when  —

thoroughly delighted

to be making mischief again.

I’m not sure if this is a criticism suburbia and its bourgeois sensibilities, or a celebration.

The poem began with nothing but the bare-bones idea of lawn care. Stream of consciousness took me the rest of the way. Typically, this comes to me in images, and is often carried along by the language itself: the musicality of words; the emerging rhythm and rhyme.

And, as usual, where it landed was as unexpected for me as I imagine it is for the reader.