Turf is the garden's sea;
It surrounds and recedes;
Verdant currents to floral shores.
Soft is the grass, comfort in the summer's eve.

Troubles fade when I tread in a shade-dappled sward.         
I love to cut it. I think about Things when I mow.
There is a Zen to this.
Grass smells good then, sweet and earthy.
Swallows dive and dip as my mower's prow leads on;
They seek the moths that flutter into the air.
SNAP the swallows feast!

 When I was younger and my sons were small,
We played in the grass.
We tumbled down hills,
On our backs,
Watching airplanes and contrails.
They laughed and laughed. I still can hear the bells in their little voices.
Older, they played tag,
Chased friends,
Rolled about with the dog,
Slept in a tent.

 They are men now.

 The two of us remain.
We walk the garden together,
Swishing the blades with our shoes, our toes.

Our lawn brings so many birds:
Robins hop;
Doves wobble;
The killdeer stalks;
And the bluebird sits above,
Waiting for food to show itself.
The birds feast well in this green sea;
They repay me with a thousand songs an hour.

   My yard has few weeds -- I do not like them.
Alien and foreign are the ratty clover,
The coarse dandelion, the prickly thistle.
Why do people sneer at weed-free lawns? I do not understand this.

A lawn is a garden, too

The fruit, the petal, the blade... is there a difference?
They are all gifts for us.
Do we approach them?
Arraign them?
Savor them all?
Ought we not them deploy them all in the garden?     

The soul aches for green after many months.
When the geese return and the warblers flit,
And Nature makes the green things green,
There's a gift, to me, to you,

From God

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
laquale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diverse fructi
con coloriti flori et herba.

Laudate et benedicite, mi signore,
et rengratiate et servite lo
cum grande humilitate.

( All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
Various fruits and colored flowers and grass.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks,
And serve Him with great humility. )

-- excerpt from the 'Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon' by St. Francis of Assisi.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.