The Push Mower

THE PUSH MOWER

By Teak Kilmer

I am the push mower

I am the lawnmower manual

I am that which lays low the lawn

I was purchased at the “Come and Go” pawn shop

by Thalas Garadus “Rod” Kilmer Sr.

to be pushed by Thalas Garadus “Teak” Kilmer Jr.

Big Thalas would have Little Thalas

push me around, lending his seeming

willfulness some character ballast

Slight other parenting ever was noted

but in this and snow shoveling the ledger was bloated

Thalas Jr cared not a wit for me

but round the house and up the bank went we

He’d tighten my bolts and adjust my blades

as the quality of my clippings fade

until alas my blades would get unsharp

I’d be hopping about like Twyla Tharp

So I’d get loaded into the ’47 Hudson Hornet’s trunk

by Thalas Little and Thalas Big

(the one who’s ever nightly drunk)

to return a few days hence

to again mow down that grass by fence

And by the neighbor’s driveway and garage

and to the back where sat garbage

Yes, I’m the hero of this tale

for son to grow character … all hail!

Together we were set against this lawn’s green blades

and down they went by my sharp steel blades

a task we both resisted with great vigor

yet always pleased to have our grasses quite less bigger

Teak, The Poet Tree