Our yard is quite treeless,
having just grass and flower beds.
When our neighbors’ trees undress,
the leaves shed get spread around,
blown afar by the wind.
A blanket, several inches deep,
of fallen leaves soon smothers our yard
in unseemly brown roughage
until my wife rakes, bags, and trashes
the leaf litter to restore the yard
to its former pristine state.
Her pride at her work soon gets dashed
as before her eyes a spate of the leaves
so despised slowly drizzle down,
her work being undone while she watches.
Alas, the leaves relentlessly float down
one by one … until a stronger burst of wind
brings leaves skating along the ground
tumbling from yard to yard to finally come
to rest upon our immaculate grass.
This aggravating pattern of leaf deposition
will repeat itself for weeks to come.
Only after the fall of all leaves is complete
and the neighbors’ trees stand bare
in their nakedness replete
will my wife then be able to keep
the clean yard she so fervently seeks.
Michael has a great point. I once had a half-acre lawn that I mowed with a 19 inch rotary push mower. It took me nearly the whole weekend every week during the summer to keep it mowed. I never raked leaves (I didn't have many trees but there were many in the neighborhood), but just let them blow around in the wind until spring. My lawn never suffered, but then, it was never considered to be "pristine."
I think those that wish to have immaculate, pristine green lawns that are heavily weed killed and fertilized, and take their clippings and leaves and bag them to be taken to the landfill are doing a real disservice to the environment. They are major polluters and need to change their ways for everyone's sake.
Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetry is certainly in dialogue with some of the key architects of the 'poetics of indeterminacy' – both the Modernist strands represented by the likes of Beckett and Stein, and the postmodernist strands represented, initially,
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I think those that wish to have immaculate, pristine green lawns that are heavily weed killed and fertilized, and take their clippings and leaves and bag them to be taken to the landfill are doing a real disservice to the environment. They are major polluters and need to change their ways for everyone's sake.
Ron
Michael D.