Tall Grass Turning to Seed
June 21 2008


There is the smell of fresh-cut grass.
There is the levelling,
decapitated weeds
for once, obedient.
And there is the surgical edge,
carving order out of chaos
one mower-width at a time.
So, finally finished
I stand hands-on-hips and survey
my contained little world, neatly tamed
with bourgeois pride,
no irony.

Black-fly season, the first hot day,
in long sleeves
gumboots
bug hat,
squinting through mosquito net and tinted glasses.
I work up a sweat, cutting grass,
and wonder about giving back
to nature
what I imperiously claim to possess.
Because, like so much that we have
it can start owning us, instead.

I picture wildflowers
and tall grass turning to seed
and whatever wind and birds may bring.
Or will it be weeds
— black-flies breeding in the cool moist undergrowth;
and wary neighbours
staring icily,
too polite to speak?