Mowing

The poem begins with some straightforward facts. “The man across the street is mowing 40 acres on a small lawn mower” (Line 1). With this first declaration, the speaker sets the scene for the reader. She is in a community with a tree farm across the street, and she does not know the name of the owner. He has 40 acres, implying that there is a lot of space between them, and they are in a rural environment. In the next sentence, “It’s so small, it must take him days, so I imagine that he likes it” (Line 2), she begins showing her curiosity about this neighbor and why he does what he does. “He / must [like it]” (Lines 2-3) she repeats. This helps to build rhythm and repetition. The sentences that follow focus the reader’s attention on the man, mimicking the speaker as he circles “so many trees. One circle here. One circle / there” (Lines 4-5). The speaker is drawing attention to the man and the rhythmic way he works.

Then the speaker reveals more about her own position in the scene. “My dog and I’ve been watching” (Line 5) she says; “The light’s escaping the sky, / and there’s this place I like to stand, it’s before the rise, so I’m invis- / ible” (Lines 5-7). Here she introduces a theme that she will unpack later; the theme of invisibility. But first she repeats what she had said before: “I’m standing there, and I’ve got the dog, and the man is mow- / ing” (Lines 7-8). She seems to be refocusing the reader’s attention, and maybe her own, on the simplicity of the moment. There are three figures, her, the man, and the dog. She says she’s “got” (Line 7) the dog, suggesting that it is a boon to her. She tells us that the dog is also watching the man on the mower, placing her and the dog at equal importance, perhaps suggesting that she is or wants to be as relaxed and faithful as a dog. It also demonstrates that she is living alongside nature in stride with her animal companion, taking the dog with her, including him in her activities. It demonstrates her alignment with the natural world and a hybridization of the mind, melding human consciousness with a wilder animal consciousness by proximity.

Next, she notices that there are no birds, or at least none that she can see. It is this thought that sparks the next thought about invisibility. The speaker wonders what it would be like to be invisible all the time and to stay invisible and still all night long. She is careful to tell the reader “It’s not / sadness, though it may sound like it.” (Lines 10-11) This leaves it up to the reader to interpret this emotion or feeling that looks like sadness but isn’t sadness. What else makes a person want to disappear and stay still? Though she doesn’t give this emotion a name, she does make another comparison, wanting to be more like a tree, which stays still. Perhaps this image explains what that feeling is, the stillness of a tree as opposed to the loud clumsy call of a crow. It seems she is yearning for a certain peace and contentment, even if it means giving up her ability to speak and the other double-sided advantages of being human.

Finally, she reflects upon her own introspection. Even as she stayed still and hidden, she let her mind wander and express its discontent with its nature. Even as she tries to be tree, she still is a crow in her mind, moving around, asking for something else. She realizes that mentally holding still is challenging. The mind, like the man mowing the lawn, moves in circles and repeats patterns, the way the speaker repeats phrases, circling back to earlier images and ideas. The mind tries to change the landscape by making it into something else. When she says it is difficult “not just to let / the savage grass grow” (Lines 14-15) she comes full circle to the image that started the poem of a man mowing down the grass.