#larry levis

Some Grass along a Ditch Bank

I don’t know what happens to grass.

But it doesn’t die, exactly.

It turns white, in winter, but stays there,

A few yards from the ditch,

Then comes back in March,

Turning a green that has nothing

To do with us.

Mostly, it’s just yellow, or tan.

It blends in,

Swayed by the wind, maybe, but not by any emotion,

Or partisan stripe.

You can misread it, at times:

I have seen it almost appear

To fight long & well

For its right to be, & be grass, when

I tried pulling it out.

I thought I could almost sense it digging in,

Not with reproach, exactly,

But with a kind of rare tact that I miss,

Sometimes, in others.

And besides, if you really wanted it out,

You’d have to disc it under,

Standing on a shuddering Case tractor,

And staring into the distance like

Somebody with a vision

In the wrong place for visions.

With time, you’d feel silly.

And, always, it comes back:

At the end of some winter when

The sky has neither sun, nor snow,

Nor anything personal,

You’d be wary of any impulse

That seemed mostly cosmetic.

It’s all a matter of taste,

And how taste changes.

Besides, in March, the fields are wet;

The trucks & machinery won’t start,

And the blades of the disc won’t turn,

Usually, because of the rust.

That’s when you notice the grass coming back,

In some other spot, & with a different look

This time, as if it had an idea

For a peninsula, maybe, or its shape

Reclining on a map you almost

Begin to remember.

In March, my father spent hours

Just piecing together some puzzle

That might start up a tractor,

Or set the tines of a cultivator

Or spring tooth right,

And do it without paying money.

Those rows of gray earth that looked “combed,”

Between each row of vines,

And run off to the horizon

As you drive past?

You could almost say

It was almost pretty.

But this place isn’t France.

For years, they’ve made only raisins,

And a cheap, sweet wine.

And someone had to work late,

As bored as you are, probably,

But with the added headache of

Owning some piece of land

That never gave up much

Without a mute argument.

The lucky sold out to subdividers,

But this is for one who stayed,

And how, after a few years,

He even felt sympathy for grass—

Then felt that turn into a resentment

Which grew, finally, into

A variety of puzzled envy:

Turning a little grass under

With each acre,

And turning it under for miles,

While half his life, spent

On top of a tractor,

Went by, unnoticed, without feast days

Or celebrations—opening his mailbox

At the roadside which was incapable

Of looking any different—

More picturesque, or less common—

The rank but still blossoming weeds

Stirring a little, maybe,

As you drove past,