August 23, 2011

the lawnmower cometh
 
A noise interrupts the tranquility of morning, the soft twitter of little birds:
a neighbor, swinging around the side of his house astride a lawnmower.
I had hoped to keep things simple: a cup of coffee, a string of words,
but the clatter crushes my cozy scene and just like that the war is over,
my lines felled at the knees. The lawn adjacent has been leveled, too,
but the shorn grass looks greener than ever, perky and alert. Happy, even,
to be cleared of all that unnecessary fluff. But that’s my envy poking through.
How nice to pare down beauty with a few swaths of a sharp blade. I’m still clutching
at the page, hoping to revive the tired troops. We need our rest, they say. Try elsewhere.
Your life, they add, could use some editing. Start there.