#82 Grass 8/09

The boys are little, and the letter on Sesame Street is G. “What is green
and grows in front of your house?” Any little suburban child would know the
answer. I am incensed. On our narrow city block there is no grass in front
of anybody’s house. I had taken a sledge-hammer to the bit of cement by my
steps when we moved in, and planted flowers. We hauled in old brick to
transform our shady backyard weed lot into a little patio. Our children
walked to the park to get their grass. I was defiant of the suburbs, proud
of our choice.

Since then, I’ve learned more about what goes into lovely lawns--the
broad-band pesticides that kill off weeds and micro-organisms
indiscriminately, the fertilizer that leaches into our streams and rivers,
the heavy fuel use, noise and air pollution of power mowers, the high demand
for watering. I have seen luxurious lawns in the southwest and at the
shore--places where grass it totally out of place, wholly dependent on
fertilizers and imported water. I have mourned the energy and resources
that go into those beautifully manicured showcase lawns, and the high bar
they set for homeowners across the country.

You could say that I am anti-lawn. Yet here I find myself, day after day,
tending a strip of grass beside the spot where the street trolleys head
underground for center city.

It started by accident. On a walk that was purely for exercise, I came
across three big flowerbeds planted in this strip, woefully neglected and
overgrown. It didn’t seem right that something which had once been
beautiful should be so unloved. I stopped to pull out some particularly
nasty-looking thistles. One thing led to another and it became a regular
stop on my walk. Over the years I conquered the thistles, pulled vines out
of trees, uprooted saplings, cleared away the remnants of a homeless man’s
nest. Then I went on to expose the rock borders of the beds, which meant
paying attention to the low weeds--and the grass.

Now, while I don’t like what goes into expensive lawns, I hate to see them
unkempt. Particularly in the city, where public green space is usually more
weed than grass, I always wish for better. I know where my high standards
come from. My mother was an indifferent housekeeper, but she didn’t like
weeds in her lawn--and her solution was labor intensive. On summer mornings
as children we would set out a loop of rope three or four feet in diameter
in the grass, and pull every weed inside our circle. I learned that it is
possible, and that it makes a difference.

So here I am weeding the grass. I weed around the rocks that border the
flower beds to keep that line sharp. I weed along the sidewalk--the edge
that is most visible. I weed out the coarse, wide-leafed plants and those
that grow quickly above the grass. I weed out the fat crabgrass that
spreads sideways and is always ready to take over. I weed out the plants
with runners that climb over the rocks and into the beds. I choose the
places that most offend the eye. It’s a job that will never be done.

Why bother? Why not let it be coarse and ugly like the rest of the city
grass? Yet it is in the struggling neighborhoods of a big city that we need
beauty the most. The people who walk by here need a place to rest the eye,
a sign that somebody cares. This is not a hardship. It’s something I can
do. I get to take my walk, have a quiet time with myself, and leave a
little more beauty and order behind. It’s a way to share my love of the
earth, away of saying that we all matter and that everybody deserves the
best.



Crows

Do you have crows here?

Crows--big and loud
with no music or beauty
low on my list of favorite birds.

No I say
striving for a neutral tone.
She is Native American
from a reservation in Maine
gracing our kitchen by chance.
I don’t know her position on crows.

I miss seeing them, she says.

Oh, I say.
We have more pigeons here.

We chat about birds
and I know
my encounters with crows
will never be the same.