Ron Watson

View from Where the Grass is Always Greener

An ideal landscape glows on our side of the line
where the grass is always greener, every blade
a predictable repeat of its mother, but brighter,
with no roguish clovers, with no forlorn daisies,
no pale petals of mystery among the multitudes;
not a tree in sight—no underbrush, scrub pine,
or blossoming doubt of dogwood springing up—
and contrary to what you might expect, not one
poet uplifting the lost handkerchiefs of his Lord:
just grass and more grass, more green than any.
Each strain emits its DNA in brilliant chlorophyll.
Our shade barely dims the glare of Perennial Rye,
New Palmetto, or the splendor of St. Augustine,
though we hope another world exists someplace
where chaos overtakes perfection from the seed.
To that end we dream of disarray—of lazy fences
half-strung by baling wire, all their mossy posts
leaning and complicit, a soft tug of honeysuckle,
kudzu, or native ivy pulling them to the ground
and into the dark, where anything might happen.