Jim Daniels: Ode to the Reel Mower

When you stop pushing 

it stops exactly there
absorbing the grace
of cut-grass silence.

*

It always starts. It never runs
out of gas. It does not
shoot your eye out
with a rock or glass shard.

*

It runs on dew and pollen
and sweat. It has never
woken one sleeping person.
It is never new and improved.

*

Grass falls gentle
onto itself like pages
of a favorite book.

*

If the blades need sharpening
a 150-year-old man with a large stone
in a damp basement will send up
faint sparks, accept no payment.

*

At night it trims
the moon's beard.

--

A reel mower: