Poem on Sunday: Mow Is Me!

Mike Jenkins

I recall how you doted on my mower,
How its blades flashed in the sun –
The aroma of cut grass
You considered so enticing,
A rotavator for the senses,

Oh ! How I miss the manner
You would sit on our patio
Sipping a cup of green tea
( To match the lawn’s colour),
Gazing lovingly as I beheaded
Daisies and then, shredded a bee.

Tragedy once when I disturbed
A tiny field mouse, slicing it up –
We wept together into our plant pots,
Watering them with our lachrymosity.

Now I try not to think
Of your new life with that landscape gardener
That professional planter, pruner, cutter.
My mower rusting sadly in the garage,
My grass grown long and unkempt.

The poem was written in response to a feature on both BBC and ITV News. It was about the research of a Cambridge PhD student on the importance of lawnmowers in poetry!

Mike Jenkins’s latest book is ‘Shared Origins’ a collaboration with David Lloyd ( USA ) & David Annwn (Wakefield), published by The Seventh Quarry Press.

All three were at Aberystwyth University together in the 70s.

Soon to be published is the third anthology of radical poetry from Cymru ‘We Not Me/Ni Nid Fi’ ( Culture Matters), edited by Mike Jenkins.