Pulling Grass

Somehow the joy of pulling grass

Is amongst other joys without a peer,

Strange as it seems.

A wayside hedge I cannot pass

And not pluck grasses in a kind of sheer

Mirth known in dreams.

 

There was an orchard of old trees

Where cocksfoot, sainfoin, hay rolled to the waist

Waves of green foam.

Windfalls of apples where you please

Bid in the depths ripened to the taste,

Wrinkled as gnome.

 

And all the grass we pulled to show

Where apples lay we piled upon a cart,

Bearing my name.

We built our haystack, watched it grow,

As did the farmers (I was one at heart),

Though but a game.

 

Many more years upon the heap

I’ve plucked from Time to build my own life-stack,

Some day to end.

Yet in me still the boy will leap

As the long grass I pull, though now my back

Is loth to bend.

 

Mona’s Herald     10.9.63