The Man into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball
each day mowed
and mowed his lawn, his dry quarter-acre,
the machine slicing a wisp
from each blade's tip. Dust storms rose
around the roar, 6 p.m. every day,
spring, summer, fall. If he could mow
the snow he would.
On one side, his neighbors the cows
turned their backs to him
and did what they do to the grass.
Where he worked, I don't know,
but it set his jaw to: tight.
His wife a cipher, shoebox tissue,
a shattered apron. As if
into her head he drove a wedge of shale.
Years later, his daughter goes to jail.
Mow, mow, mow his lawn
gently down a decade's summers.
On his other side lived mine and me,
across a narrow pasture, often fallow --
a field of fly balls, the best part of childhood
and baseball. But if a ball crossed his line,
as one did in 1956,
and another in 1958,
it came back coleslaw -- his lawnmower
ate it up, happy
to cut something, no matter
what the manual said
about foreign objects,
stones, or sticks.
Commentary
From the minute I read the title of today’s poem, I knew I was going to enjoy it. “The Man into whose Yard you Should Not Hit Your Ball” - what child has not known one? It conjures up an instant image, an entire personality type summed in one short line.
Nor did the rest of the poem disappoint. Despite a certain (unavoidable) predictability, I was captivated by the charm of the language, the almost-stream of conscious narrative tone, and above all, the sheer observation that sparkled in every line. I think my favourite touch was the “one did in 1956/ and another in 1958” - the incidents, probably no more than passing nuisances in the man’s life, stamped indelibly across the narrator’s boyhood and looming large in memory.
Nicely wrapped up poem, too - when I read these stream-of-consciousness poems I always hold my breath a little, wondering if the poet will be up to the task of supplying an ending that both flows with and definitively closes the poem. Fortunately, Lux was, and the finished whole stands as a very satisfying experience.
— Martin
Biography
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=116
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Peter Macinnis · 2 June 2004
Sometimes admiration, like revenge, is a dish best tasted cold. Here is some admiration, though this is a tale of young revenge.
I also had such a neighbour – at nine or ten, I crept into her backyard in the middle of the night, and retrieved the plastic rotor blade that had flown over the fence and which was hung like a trophy on the railing of her back steps, tauntingly visible from our back door. I left on the hook, in its place, a note that read “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods”. It was inscribed in a decidedly childish hand, but what of it?
My father had taught me the use of the knight’s fork in chess, a week or two earlier, and I was well aware that she could not protest at my action without admitting that she knew who had written it, and who owned the object. I also felt that my parents would stamp and whistle if they learned of my actions, but I dared not tell them, just in case they felt I was twisting a Biblical text.
It never occurred to me that they might wonder how it had returned. They clearly decided not to ask.
Now I am the age of that malignant old woman, and that poem brought me a moment’s pleasure to recall one of them who was bested, beaten and outfoxed by a child.
cheers
peter macinnis