in honor of 25 years of rejections by the u.s.a.'s literary print publications. I knew better 30 years ago. And yet felt the need for proof. Silly Poet.
where young boys play
rock climbing
mountain calling
friends in trust
adventuring where men
fear to go
young boys reach
to the largest dreams
if imaginations dare
old friends
have names changed so
from where
wall of fear unclear
glass houses painted black
time time
never flows back
years
real mountains climbed
high clouds tasted
played high rock
long jazz silence
old school letters
unanswered
dusty bibles
sing hymns
where telephones
don't believe
and blind men
claim to see.
I'm not sad for myself. As a child I believed in our country. Why am I respected in South America. From wales to Russia, from Netherlands to Paris to Lebanon to the middle and far east. In China?Etc...Even our country's high schools and colleges. But 25 years not one print publication. I know why, I get saddened and need to rant. Our sad dying culture...Lost in their green dreams. It's because I am aware how good I am.
In the wild forest, the leaves fall wherever they may and carpet the ground, softening the forest floor, sealing in moisture and protecting everything from the deep freeze of winter. Their deterioration over time helps restore fertility to the forest without the help of any other source.
As your poem suggests and the green lawn pundits require, leaves are to be raked up and placed into impervious plastic bags and carted off to the landfill. Thereby robbing the yard and grass of useful groundcover that is replaced by expensive mulch and nutrients that are replaced by expensive fertilizer. Likewise, the practice of scooping up grass clippings and carting them off as well.
In my 30 years of living in a suburban home, I have rarely raked leaves (simply mowed the lawn with them and directed the clippings and chopped up leaves into my flowerbeds for groundcover. No raking and bagging required. I have never used fertilizer on my lawn and it has always been as green as any other.
Selected poems from previous & forthcoming collections together with Q&R apps on each page to enable audio rendition simultaneously with the written text
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As your poem suggests and the green lawn pundits require, leaves are to be raked up and placed into impervious plastic bags and carted off to the landfill. Thereby robbing the yard and grass of useful groundcover that is replaced by expensive mulch and nutrients that are replaced by expensive fertilizer. Likewise, the practice of scooping up grass clippings and carting them off as well.
In my 30 years of living in a suburban home, I have rarely raked leaves (simply mowed the lawn with them and directed the clippings and chopped up leaves into my flowerbeds for groundcover. No raking and bagging required. I have never used fertilizer on my lawn and it has always been as green as any other.
Ron