Something there is that doesn’t love my lawn,
That sends the racing snowplow cross the front of it,
And scrapes the front-edge soil into the street and drive,
Making gouges that the rain can further grow.
The work of parkers is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair,
Where they have left huge holes tire-deep and long.
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I walk the line and scrape and set the soil once again,
using a spell to make it stay:
“Until the next car parks or rain doth wash away.”
When this house was built then bought by me,
No funds were found for edges poured.
But years of pacing to and fro,
glove, broom, and shovel moving land,
I can only say, with strain-ed back and sweated brow,
Good curbstones make good neighborhoods.
