Nobody Listens To The Noisy Mower Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

The mower told the grass not to grow,
In the loudest of noises and the grass,
Stubbornly grew as if nobody had just
Beaten it on the head, and mowed it down
Into tufts. The mower returned as
Always and did the job, the same way
Knowing this time it would win.
But the rain came to the aid of
The grass, and with an ally like it
The battle, waged on between the grass
And the mower. The mower got older
And its sound got louder, until it
Realized it was fighting a losing
Battle, for the rain told it never
To fight a battle it cannot win,
Finally it died and was sold to a scrap
Merchant, who asked it why it was so
Old and angry. It said the grass still
Grows and mocks it, each rainy season,
With shoots so new it had to quit,
In tears and hide away with embarrassment,
At how so weak an enemy could defeat
So strong a power for its motor,
Was made in Germany by the best
Of engineers. The scrap merchant
Simply threw the mower in the heap,
And off he went to be remade into
Steal for a railroad, and only
Then would the grass stop growing,
For the trains never allowed
So stubborn a species, to defeat
it. The arms of a man who held
The mower joined in applause, for
Finally his mower could rest
Knowing it was in new territory.