What’s the go with like, older men and grass?
A mid-life, weekend employment,
Sweat toil commitment to its progression and regression.
Slaves to its peaks n’ troughs,
Waiters to its frequent thirst, occasional hunger.
Poses unimportant anthropological point.
Its existence promoted, augmentation accumulation actively asked;
Fertilisers, aerators, sprinklers in the dry.
Why such reaction to its inevitable blow n’ bloom?
Simply solved by shrubs, gravel, crush or concrete.
Nary an inch of new growth peers above the horizontal,
Out Bill the neighbour marches in tattered yakka’d uniform,
Fires up three modes of land stinky,
Remains of the day lost to the art and science of grass reduction.
Mick employs half his working week to its growth.
Weeds it, feeds it, dampens it with dam water.
Only cud his ‘carnivore’d’ cows will ever ruminate on.
At once he burns it, chars it with chemicals,
His fence line, scorched earth apocalypse.
This complicated relationship with non-weeds
Unspoken, absorbed from generation to generation.
Profane proclaimed by Jim as each plant-pip pops from perfect preened pastures.
Uses grass minimisation
As means to dust off his ‘desk-day’.
Mindfully mines mass of un-merry meadow.
Every measly millimetre of mead
Must be mounted or mastered or mitred.
Bruce curses each cuticle of grass breaking signs of new life
Corrals outdoor-based, un-patted pets
To deliver his semi-death blows.
Every fence squared meter
Manned by hooves n’ horns n’ wool n’ goatee’d gruffs.
Each Grass Grifter or Lawn Wrangler
Would prevent perceived-pandemic pademelons potential to partake.
Peculiarly proprietorially protective of this non day-job.
Fear these ‘macropodic’ interlopers will gazump them,
Undercut their role, at a cheaper, non-fossil-fuelled rate.
I like to let it grow, see where it leads,
Before making such rash decision as to cut it;
Plant-ling, bright weedy flower, gold goose eggs, being yelled at.
Not to the front door though,
Although nothing a week of treading on it wouldn’t remedy.
©DanBuckley2020
Dan Buckley is a part-time farmer, casual dad and full-time writer. He is currently working on a second book of poems and his first novel. A a proud Huon Valley local, he contributes to Huon Valley News. When not writing, he pulls out weeds, picks up animal poo, feeds chooks, chases miniature ponies and brushes oils through his beard.
