by Marcia Seabury

Behold him, single in his yard,
Yon solitary modern neighbor!
Mowing and murmuring by himself;
Absorbed in all his labor.
Alone he cuts and bags the grass,
And raps a lyric as I pass—
all quite inaudible, of course—while the Craftsman’s deafening drone assures
that no one within blocks could possibly set forth on a flight of imagination.

Will no one tell me why he finds
That earbuds and his riding machine
Preempt a simple nod or smile
Amidst his lone routine?
After a day of connecting by screen,
a way to stay shielded from people and scene—
all quite unnecessary, of course— he didn’t really have to listen
to someone’s sorrow, loss, or pain. Say, neighbor—it was just a nod.

Whate’er the song, the neighbor mowed
As if his swath could have no ending;
I saw him mumbling at his work,
And o’er his mower bending;—
I kept on walking, no use to pause,
And as I brooded, faced the cause—
all quite unsurprising, of course—and the unmiraculous ordinary repeats
tomorrow next door, as cacophonies of noise and silence weigh the heart.

. . . with a nod to the reaper, of course