<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Lawn<\/strong><\/p>\n Just starting my bowl of cereal and glancing if I pulled the handle and walked up and down dew. As ever, I did what I was told, I couldn\u2019t mow it; they\u2019d Don, the handyman. I don\u2019t want it blossoming, don\u2019t want apples <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stuart Pickford<\/strong> is the recipient of an Eric Gregory award. His first collection, The Basics<\/em>, was published by Redbeck Press (2002) and shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection prize. His second collection, Swimming with Jellyfish<\/em> (2016), was published by smith\/doorstop. Stuart lives in Harrogate and teaches in a local comprehensive school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Lawn Just starting my bowl of cereal and glancing at the wintry Beast from the East in The Mail when Dad hands me a three-foot broom. The time? Minutes past nine. As he\u2019d said, if I pulled the handle and walked up and down in lines, in strict lines, looking behind, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14757"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15109,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757\/revisions\/15109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nat the wintry Beast from the East in The Mail
\nwhen Dad hands me a three-foot broom.
\nThe time? Minutes past nine. As he\u2019d said,<\/p>\n
\nin lines, in strict lines, looking behind,
\nlike in the days he used to cut the grass,
\nI could sweep away the\u2014what was it?\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthe dull water like a cloud too heavy
\nfor the sky, a slur on the colour green.
\nThe lawn would be dry by lunch. Obviously,<\/p>\n
\nAs he didn\u2019t do ladders, Dad asked
\nif I could prune the apple tree, hard.
\nYour mother hates cutting anything, but<\/p>\n
\nall over the grass. And you were right,
\nlate in the afternoon, the lawn was lined,
\nfound its colour. Summer had come back.<\/p>\n