I’ve let the yard go.
There’s still grass, yes, but bit
by bit it steps aside for dandelions
and violets, creeping vines
with purple flowers, baby bluets
and buttercups. It is as if I’m
allowing space for one small
flower per bee, inviting them
to my yard for a drink.
The neighbors whose lawn is perfect,
who mow 3 times a week in the summer
and polish their driveway after
every scant snow in winter
are affronted; they barely speak to me
and they watch the dandelion heads
spill their seed into the air–
floaty spun sugar bombs settling down
to mark their blank canvas.
But I’m smug; I don’t care.
My yard is a motley expressionist mess
a glorious garish foolishness
and given time, it will feed the world.
Sara Eddy is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Tell the Bees (A3 Press, 2019) and Full Mouth (Finishing Line, 2020), along with a book of ekphrastic poetry written in collaboration with the photographer Dominique Thiebaut. She has published widely in literary journals: some of her poems have appeared recently in Threepenny Review, South85, Raleigh Review, and Ekphrastic Review. She is Assistant Director of the writing center at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and works in close collaboration with the librarians in the special collections at Neilson Library, especially on collections centered on consumerism, food & cookbooks, poetry, and beekeeping. She maintains her own collection of vintage cookbooks for use by food writing students at Smith. She lives in nearby Amherst with a teenager, a black cat, and a white dog.