Ode to Fresh-cut Grass

O,

to be a blade of grass clipped

in the spring. Perhaps I’d be

appreciated for

the sweet scent of my death

and my body

would be returned to the soil

beneath the glimmer

of a well manicured lawn.

O,

I’d be loved by association:

it smells like spring would be warbled,

a lullaby as the motor blades sever me

in the first daylight’s dewey chill.

Waves of remembrance crash

on the mind’s shore–I, the grass,

would be the stain

on their knees.

O,

the evocations I’d bring of lost times,

of lost boys, of ticking clocks and

be back by seven!  Of moonlight trysts

which should have lasted longer

or the last weeks of frosty mornings,

bookended by a nap in the park,

with the humming chorus of mowers

in the distant neighborhoods.

O,

to be that blade of grass,

to be clipped in the spring,

to be loved for my scent, for my death.

But I am left to wonder, would the scent

of iron seep into such beloved sward?

When damaged, would my body not bleed?

Prithee, let me not taint the earthy scent

with such metallic ichor.

O,

allow me to fill the air

with sugared green pheromones.

Allow me to swirl in the afternoons,

a verdant spear carried in the breeze.

Let my torn body, loved by many,

be nothing more than a backdrop

for more crooned melodies.

Allow me to die, a blade of grass.