Let’s Hear It for Non-Lawns

A lawn’s a fearsome thing,

out of place in the natural world.

So who made it king of suburbia?

Who decided grass

trumped fields and woodlots

and instituted the violence of

fertilizers, herbicides

and repeated mowing?

Let a lawn go for a month

and wildness reasserts.

The grass reaches for height

and the right to seed

and perennials, vines and shrubs

take root to match the destiny

of that bit of earth.

There’s essential learning

in our yards.

If we cease dumbing them down

to a single species,

they would teach us

of our place in the world

and our dominion

over living things.