American Life in Poetry: ‘Summer Mowing’ by Jennifer Gray

Here’s a touching father-son poem by Jennifer Gray, who lives in Nebraska. If you’re not big enough to push a real mower, well, you make a mower of your own.

Summer Mowing

He has transformed

his Tonka dump truck

into a push mower, using

lumber scraps and duct tape

to construct a handle

on the front end of the dump box.

One brave screw

holds the makeshift

contraption together.

All summer they outline

the edges of these acres,

first Daddy, and then,

behind him

this small echo, each

dodging the same stumps,

pausing to slap a mosquito,

or rest in the shade,

before once again pacing

out into the light,

where first one,

and then the other,

leans forward to guide the mowers

along the bright edges

of this familiar world.

Poem copyright 2015 by Jennifer Gray, from Plainsongs, (Vol. XXXV, no. 3, 2015), and reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. Poem reprinted by permission of Jennifer Gray and the publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.We do not accept unsolicited submissions.