A Deep River Year - 2017

Yesterday I mowed the grass under a warm June sky, feeling the golden sun overhead for the first time in days. The long, wet Spring has made for a lush green world, and the grass was nearly knee-deep in places. So out came the gas mower, which chugged to a roar on the second pull of the starter rope. It was satisfying to make long parallel mower tracks up and down the back yard, and to whack into submission the miscellaneous weeds that pass for a lawn out by the front fence.


I have cut grass almost all my life. As a boy, I mowed our yard, as a duty. But a pair of sweet, white-haired ladies who lived in the big house next door offered to pay me to do their lawn. They couldn’t always pay with cash. Sometimes their reward was cookies, and once they paid me with a crank-operated phonograph console that had a drawer full of ¼” thick records, that crackled with ancient song. But cutting grass was almost its own reward.


Long ago we had a push reel mower, whose clickety-clickety sound seemed a more fitting companion to the summer sounds of birds and insects and wind in the trees. However, when it hit a hidden stick in the lawn, that old mower came to a lurching halt, as the blades bound and sent the metal handles of the contraption into my ribs. But always the finished product gave a happy sense that I had, for a moment, brought a little more order into the chaos of the world. And, ah, the smell of cut grass!


June


O, June,
 warm, full of golden light,
 rich and dripping,
 wet after rain,
 fulfillment of winter's promises
 and sweet as a strawberry moon:
 I would rest in your soft arms
 and fall asleep
 as fireflies dance at dusk
 and roses on the fence
 breathe a soft sigh,
 and all around is the scent
 of honeysuckle and clover.
 Or just this would be enough:
 to offer one small prayer,
 a gloria of gratitude,
 as the incense of new- mown grass
 rises like a blessing
 through the window
 of my dreams.


--Timothy Haut