Everyday Grass by Connor Deeks (viewing exercise)

Everyday Grass by Connor Deeks

There’s a large field of grass,

But not the kind known.

It’s Oregon grass, still

Damp from the months of rain.

Browned tint and not entirely flat or uniform.

It boasts its irregularities to the manmade

Concrete sidewalk that cuts through it,

From corner to corner.

The blades are inviting to those around,

It beckons anyone to stomp on it,

This grass loves the Frisbee throwers,

The troubled poets, the sunbathers.

Please it screams to the travelers,

But the sidewalk path robs all the traffic.

As a boy I loved to take my shoes off,

To play in the pleasant blades,

Let them tickle my feet as I kicked

A red ball past the outfield full of girls.

Those girls who wanted to play with the boys.

We showed them equality,

“Sure you can play, but you have to stand

far from the ball and kick last.”

You’ll get your turn, but the batting order,

A ranking, childishly important,

Starts over every inning.

The grass doesn’t approve of this,

But it stands tall, happy to be played upon.

There is a woman singing gracefully,

Her high notes coming through the windows of the music building,

Come dancing across the green sea towards me,

Laying on the grass.

The building, white and cracking, 100 years old,

Awkwardly sits on the edge of the field.

Its traffic has long been lost to the sciences,

Few trek there for lessons in music,

An object of the past like the grass leading up to its entryways.

I remember having a yard,

Not a wooden deck attached to an apartment,

A small patch of the good stuff,

Where my brothers and I would play tag.

The neighborhood kids flocked to it,

It was the biggest patch around.

That grass wagged its ends and loved,

Loved like the Airedale terriers,

Those furry dogs that wagged their tails in our presence.

I miss Theodore and Hillary.

The grass misses its children.

The woman’s voice has stopped,

Her class probably ended.

It’s strange to hear a music building

From which no music can be heard.

All I hear is the incessant chirping of the birds,

The green’s friends who never leave,

Although they do peck it from time to time.

A plane flies overhead, two bicyclists whiz by.

A couple, one in purple, one in grey walk by.

The grass sees it all,

No one sees the grass.