MOWING THE FIELDS OF THE REPUBLIC

I mow my lawn

from the outer edges

in concentric squares

shrinking green tufts

into a disappearing island

 

But no lawn is an island

why not start in the center

mowing out

past my boundaries

to the next door neighbor’s yard

 

I'll need to take time off from work

as I race up and down

suburban streets

connecting the neighbors' lawns

with the lawns of the Capitol, Central Park

and town greens of New England.  

moving now at a stately pace

and across the Kentucky bluegrass

to please pampered thoroughbreds.

Rivers of lawn carry me

to great coliseums

and their 100 yards

precisely coifed

as thousands of seats look on

Is it any wonder artificial turf

was abandoned and returned to grass and earth?  

Where are the dreams in artificial turf?

My vast grid expands

to reprise summer lawns of memory

--front yards of modest Ohio towns

but also around gravestones of my grandparents,

and great grandparents

all the while watched

by a civil war soldier standing in granite pose. 

 

Octane fumes mixed with humid air

make me lose count of little league fields

I mow in diagonal textures

the kind you see on TV during the baseball highlights

I'm left mowing in the dark

one giant island

of rolling fields of the great republic

--from sea to shining sea.

 

 

Author's Note

Needs work but wanted to share in its current state. Input encouraged.

Reviews

[Marie]

THis is fanciful,; very enjoyable...mowing from sea to sea...

[Pryde Foltz]

What I read is bi-homage to your life experience and the history of your country. A man wishing for a time when he was a boy and his country innocent. But maybe I am projecting.

[rutherford]

Thanks Pryde. I think as fair an interpretation as any. I have time to think when I mow the lawn. Maybe nostalgia for the boy and less the desire to return to that time.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i like the extension of the self with the mowed lawns...and i relate...emily is my favorite...was within 19 miles of her house..and regretted not going...but my friend jim did..what an experience...and my parents live 2 miles from Pinehurst, in Southern Pines...

close...the more we mow, the more people we know...and it is a small world...but as steven wright says. "i wouldn't want to have to paint it."

maybe mow its lawns though...that is a good thing.

liked the journey this takes me on.

i mowed lawns in high school to survive..had several i did...didn't make much back in the mid sixties for it...but back then, it could pay for some dates...

[rutherford]

I'm still thinking about how to tame this one but I was stuck on the idea of all the famous lawns across the country.