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Someone gave us a gift basket
Of woven grass
With flowers intertwined
Through the loosely woven
Stems of ordinary grass.
For several weeks
The grass basket was
The most beautiful thing in the house.
Compared to it
Everything else was drab.
I knew that it would fade
And dry out and that gradually
It would become ordinary
But it took its time
Relinquishing its aura
Of lovingly crafted wildness.
Watching it grow old before my eyes
I tried hard to anticipate its senescence
And not resent its leaving me.
But then one morning
I simply realized that it didn't belong
In the house any more.
Even though it was still
In the shape of a basket
I had to admit it had lost its charm
And was now more grass than basket.
It was the middle of June.
The sun rose warm on the morning
That I decided to place it on
The railing of the deck
With a stone to keep it from blowing
Into the yard. To my surprise
It seemed to flourish there;
As something but half-created
It sat there for another week or two.
And then one day
I saw that it was
Weary of being a basket.
I removed the simple wire frame
Around which the crafter
Had woven the grass and flower stems
And took it down to the field
Where I placed it with the other grass.
Within a few days I returned
To find that it had blown away.
(Article changed on April 24, 2020 at 17:00)
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