A Million Dead Blades Poem by Kurt Philip Behm

Wandering into the tall grass
With shears not meant to cut
I pushed and stepped
And stepped and shoved
My direction the only thing dashed
I wandered left
And wandered right
As the weeds took over my path
They seemed to know me
As I tramped them down
I heard screaming with each
One I smashed
'It's always the grass,
'It's always the grass, '
One of them cried
Disappearing under my boot
'They abandoned their brothers,
'To live in the open
'Among people that cut at their roots'
I got to a clearing—the path widened out
Ahead did a tractor invade
And for the first time it hit me
For the first time it mattered
Before me,
—lay a million dead blades

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May,2017)