On Grasses and Lawns

In my mindscape, grasses are albums of drives across the US through its prairyland of golden down; of Indian winter scenes viewed from train rides of tall tawny grasses with billowy white tufts; of burgundy silk topping golden straws, swaying under the music of the perched sunbirds. Grasses recall crystal dripping monsoon willows lighted up by an occasional ray; walks through the Indian wastelands with a staff, pushing through grasses that brush shoulders- grasses in shades of gold, brown, jade, emerald, violet, purple, silver,light to deep-wild, free, varied, abundant-grasses being just themselves-zen grasses, absolutely essential within nature's complex web.

Yet, within the domesticated, urbanised, educated, cultured world of modern man, grass recalls lawns, resplendant, smooth, even, mutated, hybridised, hardied to the ravages of human civilisation, rolled up in sheets, laid out over rubble, concrete, harmone fed to ensure uniform, subdued growth, even color tones, flooded with hose pipes or to time schedules of a rotating sprinkler systems, shorn, shaved, trimmed to perfection to provide that worthy floor for a priviledged foot- in ultimate conquest of man over nature-subjugated, humiliated, defeated.