Muscles pull taut
Cheek to hamstring
Cheek to cheek
Pearly whites gleam in the summer day's sun
My body embraces exertion
Slowly stretching out from a slumbering winter.
Clippers chop with renewed vigor
Thorny adversaries fall in force
Scythed strips of shade an acceptable casualty.
We're defending the fragile, the vulnerable, the threatened
Meandering meadows
Refuge for harrier hawks, spicebush swallowtail:
But buckthorn, bittersweet and barbeary
Barricade in the grasslands on all fronts
An encroaching endangerment we work to keep at bay.
Daylight demurely recedes,
The sun skirts behind the silo
The Catskills bask in their glory.
Fireflies flirt with the draw of dusk
Dancing among the dogwoods
Blissfully innocent in their ignorance.
Lives too short to think of sustainability.
We must think for them, of them
To ensure our posterity
Are ever-entertained by their evening glow.
