Mowing Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Mowing is crushing life
fast under feet of frolicking
children, and lads
running, kicking and grinding
with molar-filled teeth.

And stamping ground,
as a mower chews off
larger doses of grass.

And they play and prattle
with soft ball, when times
are hard, one side
crowing with cocks, as the other
croaks and groans at ball.

And barks at air and sky
thrashed for not helping out.
And roars at spirals
of dust that blinds them
and makes them lose
under rising layers of dust

(ii)

But mowing while seated
in a tree, cuts grass
and undergrowth right
from their roots,

without igniting a rattling,
humming mower, as eyes
sweep and cut through
all that lives beneath
tramping and trudging feet.

(iii)

Perched on a high tree
branch above an unknown
mound shaven
and trimmed to level out
into a tomato garden field, I see
nature in all its shades.

Whirring zoysia grass
and wind-bitten love grasses
stoop to the blowing
mouths of soft breezes.

By mewling cat's tail grass,
nature raises low flags
and sprays ribbons of small
flowers and creeping
white stars of colorful plants,

as arachnids creep shoulder
to shoulder in a world
of no love lost between man
and leaning, creeping nature.

(iv)

Praise be to God we can
sometimes, with blades of eyes,
sweep deep underneath
low grasses that do not bleed.

With soft teeth of eyes,
we cut through low weeds,
without wounding buds
and sprouting grasses,
as we spare lovebugs and ants.