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
I wish our grass cutter was as imaginative as yours - Here, it's "kill everything that grows". Thankfully, dandelions seem to recover very quickly!
ReplyDelete