Lawn Mower

When I came out on the far end of the swath
exposed by the five-blade push reel lawn mower
I had aimed in one direction till it reached
the fence that keeps my yard from my neighbor’s woods,
I stopped and looked around at the green sea
with its wake of cuttings, and I asked myself
Why would you want to do a thing like that?
and then I stood the mower against the fence
and walked back up the path to the garage
where the boxes on the shelves along one wall
kept magazines and toys and hand-me-downs,
and the open sack of cow manure on the floor
held promise of more grass I would not mow
and on the windowsill the radio
played Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”
amidst a rubble of wirenuts and flathead screws.

:: Michael Heffernan, Love’s Answer (1994)