Mowing Them Down Poem by Denis Mair

I'd like to thank the farmer
Who left the yard of lush second growth
Where all my memories date back to,
With gooseberries growing by the mailbox,
And a large toad living under the porch
And me behind a roaring machine
Mowing down an acre of meadow plants.
We had thistles and violets
We had clover and queen anne's lace,
And they all went down in my concentric squares.
I liked mowing over the fairy rings
That sprouted up in circles overnight;
I would shred the white insides of puffballs
Or send up a puff of brown spores;
Mow down lushness from an old chicken coop,
Release the scent of bee balm and chamomile,
Hard to detect through gasoline fumes;
Mow down that fungus most obscene, MUTINUS CANINUS
Which exactly resembled my dog's erection
Said by my brother to have been severed in a mowing accident;
I would mow over toadstools in the sawdust pit
Where my brother used to practice decathalon!
Buzz and snarl through afternoons of years,
While the grape arbor is torn down,
While my brother who cannot tell a lie
Chops down our final senile cherry tree
And goes off to be a conservative;
Mow down the dandelions, and of course grass
Until the last outbuilding comes down
Until my mother has moved away to another town,
Until the lawn looks like someone's crew cut,
And the muskrat ditch turns into a culvert
And I am entering my college years.