| The
Battle of the BlueRidge
If they announced a federal
intent
To seize your lawnmower, you'd put up a fuss;
Or what if they, with brandished blunderbus,
Your lawn demanded, without your consent?
What if your lawn was once your Father's lawn,
His Father's prior, and his Grandpa's, back
To when one ragged, with a gunny sack
And little else, and nothing left to pawn,
Had wandered up into the trackless hills,
And settled in a little hollow, thick
With chestnut, oak and ash, and clearing stick
And stone, a cabin built and whiskey stills?
The boulders moved, the timbers sawn
He smoothed himself a little lawn.
What if one day, a long time
after that,
What best could be described as nomad herds,
A tribe without a job, a flock of birds
Blacking the sun for number, shapeless hat
And suit-coat second hand, as scarecrows dress,
Like Scarecrows dressed, and like the crows they scare
For number and voraciousness, thread-bare
Grew restless as it grew provisionless,
And en masse threatened amber waves of grain?
What if the purple mountains' majesty,
The Blue Ridge, Dad and Grandpa's property,
Were quarried to replant the fruited plain?
The men whose paying jobs were gone
Built Parkways through your Daddy's lawn.
The chestnut blight did not
destroy,
Like Roosevelt, both Hatfield and McCoy.
The chestnut to the root is sawn;
Now we can drive on Papa's lawn.
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