"The Darker Grass" by Eric McHenry, Guest Contest Judge

The Darker Grass

Eric McHenry

You hate the easy things to hate:

new buildings and the weird materials

they’re made from (gypcrete, carbon fiber, foam),

5-Hour Energy, four-dollar gas,

"Blight" Graphite and Watercolor on Paper by J. Artemus Gordon

the newness of the sacrificial grass

in medians, the new arterials

that in another month will narrow

to two lanes so that crews can widen them

to six lanes so that you won’t have to wait

your turn to wait your turn for a turn arrow.

You’ll drive an extra mile to do your driving

through parts of town that pose no threat of thriving,

which means you’ve started seeing more

of your old neighborhood, which makes you wonder

if architects are ever paid to render

houses in hypothetical decline,

because that might have helped prepare you for

the seeding lawn, the 6 that’s now a 9,

the deposed mini-dish, the single shutter,

the notice Scotch-taped to the door,

the doorless frame, the deviating gutter,

the misaligned and multicolored shingles,

the spraypaint flourishes, the altered angles

of everything including your old block

and your old house, which now looks like a stock

photo from an Economist article

on houses that are worth less than the cost

of razing them. If there’s a troubled ghost

that haunts that groaning storybook, it’s you.

How many midnights have you drifted through

its seven rooms? How long do you intend

to keep your vigil at that particle-

board windowpane before you apprehend

the lost colonial across the street,

the one that overlooked the neighborhood

paternally and got out while it could,

its front walk still advancing through the grass

in concrete increments to meet

the darker grass where the foundation was?

Poet’s Notes: This is another poem I wrote after moving back to my hometown. A front walk leading to a house that had been demolished was the image that got it going. 

Editor’s Note:  Housing and neighborhood “blight” is a real and pressing issue in many cities, including Kansas City, the major city closest to my home.  For a sad but true article on this growing problem, see http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/battling-blight-in-northeast-kansas-city-one-house-at-a-time.  “The Darker Grass” was first published in Salamander.