Thursday 24 May 2018

Summer Style


It's that time of year again!
The fella from the County Council has been transforming our Park/Woodland into a maze of 
woodsy-wildflower trails. Am posting a revised version of  poem I wrote for him last year.


THE STYLIST

Nobody sees him shave his trails
But in the evening they are there
Turning our park woodland into a gallery
Of buzz cuts, long and short.

Opening up our possibilities.
Giving us choices we never knew we had.
A high taper with scalp exposure in front of the big Ash.
To the left, a clean shaven trail that cuts through fields of daisies.

And, to the right, a razed trail that weaves and curves
Through common vetch, its clinging tendrils wrapped
Around its neighbours. A mane with shaved sides circles
The Beech, enticing us past stinging nettles

That skirt a hedge of bramble, not yet ripe, and ribwort plantain,
its ovary capsules spilling seeds at our feet.
Or past a butch cut that slices through a clump of dandelion,
Their jagged teeth, dents-de-lion, in various stages of growth;

Some bright yellow heads threatening closure
With the scent of rain, and gossamer balls of seeds
Shedding themselves in our wake.
A stroke of his blade

And a stubble path is shaven with precision
Through tall grass sporting hogweed five feet tall.
A V junction creates a crown of creeping buttercups
Drawing the eye to a newly planted Oak.

He’ll be back tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.
Restyling and regrooming our park.
The man on the grass mower tractor
From Dunlaoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

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