What is it about a backyard?
That certain sense of intense exploration,
Map-following revelation
All in the confines of one’s own property line?
In younger minds and days, I remember the play that went on.
Gold-digging and hiding from numerous tribes
Of cannibals wishing to dine.
The swingset became the ruins of Maya,
The sandbox a foxhole in war.
I once built myself a hideous nest,
Of mud bricks embedded with thorns.
This was my kingdom and fort.
I built pulley systems of kitestring and buckets,
Taken from sandbox and beach.
I would hoist up my food and my treasures, to keep them from anyone’s reach.
Now the backyard is still unsubdued,
Construction made sure of all that.
The wavering weeds drop off their seeds,
And come back every spring to attack.
Last year I built a path with some boards,
To get through the weeds and the mast.
A ground flush balancing beam,
Which took all the grace that I had.
This year I waged war on the weeds down below,
And sowed a new garden of sorts.
Civilization seems nigh, and yet I still sigh,
’Cause you still can’t go down there in shorts.
(Stinging nettles!)
My old garden up by the deck,
Decays with it into wreck.
My old father fears,
Though it will take eighty years,
That he’ll uproot it all, and then pave.
He’s been meaning to do that since ’95
So I know it won’t be a close shave.
This jungle of sorts
Is deemed quite a wart, a blot in landscaped creation.
But I love it still,
’Cause I get my fill
of anarchy, mischief, and of course exploration,
From a fenced in and owned bit of land.
