We take turns on the ride-on mower.
It’s our recreation and our therapy.
Its fierce little engine becomes all there is
Between you and the destruction of the grass
As you and mower spit those twitchy grasshoppers
Out with the flying dust and brittle twigs.
We take turns on the ride-on mower
Spinning round the struggling trees that drop
Their thin shade on your mowing mind.
It’s more repetitious even than the daily news.
It’s evidence of work done to be done again
as long as Tony keeps the spark plugs clean
And the earth gives up its rain to the grass again.
We take turns on the ride-on mower.
The desert silent to the ringed horizon
Nurses its hurts, counts its scars, settles for this
Strategy of infinite blue indifference overhead
And its Martian puzzle of rocks and ridges out ahead.
We take turns on the ride-on mower.
It's our therapy and our recreation. Gradually
We set the sharpened blades a little lower
Until our shadow’s cut sharp on earth-red paths
And iron stones all the way to the further boundary
Of school and town, road and hill—not quite as far
As you can see, no, despite our need, never quite that far.
please bring it up to our place if you run out of grass to mow
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