Flora Conversing (Thinking Lawnmower Thoughts)

If I’m a beech
Then you’re a birch
As time goes on and my trunk grows full
Deep brown branches hungrily extend
Reaching out for anything else to touch

To me, lawnmower thoughts and artistic inspiration are one in the same. Something inspirational lies in the melancholic humming of a two-horsepower motor, spinning a sharpened piece of steel, spitting out fresh hewn grass.

During Spring days I walked. On summer afternoons I walked. In the Autumn evening I walked. I walked. And I walked. And I walked; always behind a lime green Lawnboy lawnmower. As I walked came thoughts. Often times those thoughts would have me running for the garage door, scampering around in kitchen drawers, frantically searching for a pen and scrap of paper, in the hopes that I might capture airy inspiration. Sometimes my net came up empty and I slouched back out the door to the summer heat or the autumn chill. Sometimes it didn’t, and as I inspected my catch the words spilled forth.

You grow in the cold
White and thin
Raspy and soft skin
To the wind you bend
Taking all, to live tall, another day

Those were the ways of my poetry, that of trying to catch lightning strikes in glass jars. Time would tick by while I expectantly waited, jar in one hand, lid in the other. All in anticipation of the split-second when I could slam the lid down, sealing it in. Too late, succumbing to a moment of hesitation, then it would be gone, and I was back to waiting. When my efforts did pay off, I took to feverishly writing, regardless of time or place, be it in classroom or bathroom. I would bury my head in a piece of paper or hunch over a keyboard, scratching and clicking away at preternatural speed. The moment of writing would proceed at a fever pitch until, at last, in an act of literary climax I would push away from my work with a self-satisfied, if not relieved, sigh. For a moment I would revel in what I had wrought, welcoming my creation into the world with affectionate eyes and a knowing smile.

If we grew together
I would reach out to be with you
You would rise up to meet me
Graceful sleek, with rough dark meek
Differences blending into complete

Thus my poetry was akin to an act of nature, something hardly tame and barely controllable. Yet I was enthralled by it, staring down at the page as if the words came from somewhere else. It was terrifying in a way, not understanding how a thing came into creation, but merely seemed to be the reaction of an impulse; like the act of sneezing after a tickle on the nose. I have never understood where the words to my poetry come from, and I imagine I never will. Still, to me poetry was beautiful and I excused the rudeness of its abuses, accepting it for the animal it was, letting it come to me and leave me as it pleased.

So it did, as it still does.