St. David's Day
It’s quite a chore to cut the soggy lawn
The grass grows higher as the sky hangs lower
You have no time to chat if grass is long
Gives reason to check out your new mower
You said it’s not as heavy as the old one
And easier to move along, more handy
You wouldn’t notice if the work is done
Until it’s time to have some tea and brandy
The lawn is perfect, smooth and velvet green
You’ve cut it at the first of March last year
It’s still the same, I see it on the screen
“St. David’s day, so happy March!” you said, my dear.
lawn mower drone cuts the silence in half
I can pretend not to hear it
or pretend I like it
I pretend it is a wishing machine
granting wishes all along the road
and I am the next house
lawn mower is all he has
we hear it roaring twelve hours a day
he is a seventy-year-old epileptic man
it is all he can drive
I am grateful he has this
in the summer of 1997
Twelve year old Ryan Tripp made a 3, 366 mile journey
across the USA raising ten thousand and four hundred dollars
for a sick baby living in his home town.
He took this trip on a twenty-five horse power mower
from Salt Lake City, Utah to Washington, D.C.
He was followed by his adoring parents and grandparents
in pick-up trucks, insuring his safety.
Lawn Mower Facts
Briggs and Stratton is number one,
Grandpa use to say…
They will last until the cows come home.
Then he dreamed a bit…
The Deere, Oh John, he plows forever,
If you can afford one, that is.
Fixing things that did not run,
with magic hands, old and withered with time.
Still able to join nothing into something,
Spark and start the blades,
whirling and the grass goes down.
Piles of old tires behind the shed.
Decks without engines, gas tanks empty.
This was the land of possibilities.
Grandpa was always moving, forward.
Frames of things, welders to melt steel,
so hot you could feel.
Then…
Mini bikes, with stolen power, leaving the grass too long.
Pushing all the right buttons, changing all the right gears.
Faster and faster.
Grandpa was right. (as always)
Briggs, are wonderful for cutting the green,
but way better
for Kicking
the
dust
up…
instead of laying the grass down!
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