I Am the Grass

I am of the prairie grass people, the shortgrass prairie people: domesticated, cattle-nibbled, ploughed, propagated, mowed, shucked, bailed and bagged. I learned early the fun of stretching a thick grass blade between the curves of my thumbs, creating a musical reed upon which parentally annoying music might be played. Mom showed me how to roll the wheat's head in my hands, separating the berries from the chaff, enough berries to chew like gum. I have this vivid memory of lying in the grass under a tree's cool shade, plucking grass for the roots, their sweet taste, the clouds drifting overhead in shapes concocted by my mind, the afternoon passing.

Eyes, hands, lips, nose, tongue, like members of an orchestra performing the symphony of grass.

Simple and sensational, yet also complex and ominous. We were often told as children not to play baseball too many times in the same yard lest we "ruin the grass." Avoid the tall grass in the woods and ditches lest we get ticks and lyme disease. Stay away from abandoned farmsteads where grass hides old, poorly covered wells lest we fall in and die. My mom used to play country music records late at night. One song, "I am the Grass," always spooked me, because it's about the grass's revenge. The last line is "I am the grass. Some day I'll cover you green." This is all I could think about when my parents took me to the different cemeteries each Memorial Day to put flowers on relatives' graves. All these people covered in grass. The grass's revenge. As I work on embracing my own mortality, I'm trying to see this differently: dust to dust, worms working the dust back into soil, new life springing forth, resilience. A good thing, this covering of grass. Not an easy change of mind.

I suppose not surprising then, even here in New Mexico I am drawn to grass. The grass is different from my eastern North Dakota roots but shares much with that of my adopted western ND. Despite the more prominent and showy cacti and brush here, my eye is drawn to the humble grass. It puts on quite a performance, green in spring, golden when lit by the rising or setting sun, shimmering when kissed by the passing blustery winds, and, at this time of year, crowned with seed heads, dormant but fecund. So much grass here, such a surprise! So many different kinds, so much food, such a big job holding the soil in place.

I do not lay in this grass, its spaces shared by prickly and biting things. It arises in bunches atop small, strong clods of earth. Its roots are not deep. The grass here is a profound mix of fragility and strength. Then again, perhaps this is the nature of grass everywhere.

I am the grass.