Mowing

This summer I pushed
The mower uphill into
memory,
Thirty years back, to where
You, strong then, cut
Stripes through different
sunlight

Does that day return
In the watches of the night
Where your mind flutters
Like a flag amongst ruins?

To me it stands beyond
The game of remembering
childhood,
A reminder, plain
As letters on a chapel
wall
That our hurrying little
lives
Are as the grass that rises;
And then is cut down.
September 2012.