I mow my lawn on Saturday.

To the Editor: There were lawns on our street and there were lawns on the next street and on the street after that. They were green lawns. In the morning you could see the water on the grass and the water on the leaves of the grass and the way the light came through the water and made the green a different green. That was in the morning. By afternoon the grass was dry and you could smell the grass and the cut ends of the grass and the dirt under the grass. The republic is failing. That is what they say and I believe they are right because I have watched it and there is no reason not to believe it. The men who were elected do not act as men who were elected. The courts do not hold. The documents which were written to protect the people do not protect the people. There were many who said this would not happen and now it is happening and they do not say much of anything. I mow my lawn on Saturday. I have always mowed my lawn on Saturday. I mow it in rows that go north and then I turn the mower and mow back south and the wheel marks in the grass go straight and the rows are even and when I am done the lawn is flat and clean and the edges along the walk are sharp and the edges along the drive are sharp and there is the smell of the grass in the air and the small clippings on the walk which I sweep back onto the lawn with a broom. A man can lose the way the courts work and the way the votes are counted and the way the laws are made and the way the laws are enforced. These are things that are taken from you and you stand and watch them taken. But the lawn is there. The lawn does not require the consent of anyone. You push the mower and the blades turn and the grass is cut. It is that simple and it is not simple at all. My neighbor has let his lawn go. There are dandelions in it and crabgrass and the dandelions have gone to seed and the seeds blow into my lawn. He says there is no point. He says the whole thing is finished and why should he mow. I understand what he means. But I do not agree with him. There were men in other countries in other times who kept small gardens in very bad years. They kept the rows straight and the weeds pulled and the beans staked and the water running in the ditches between the rows. The government fell and the army came through and the army went and another army came and the men went out in the morning and pulled the weeds and staked the beans. This was not because they were stupid. This was not because they did not see. They saw everything. They kept the garden anyway. The lawn is the last territory you hold. The lawn is what you can still do on a Saturday when the news is very bad and the things you believed about your country turn out not to be true and the men on the television talk and talk and none of what they say changes anything. You can go out and you can mow the lawn. The mower does not care about the polls. The grass does not know about the hearings. The edges along the walk are sharp or they are not sharp and that is between you and the edges and no one else. I do not write this to be cheerful. There is nothing cheerful about any of it. The republic is in serious trouble and the lawn will not save it. I know that. Everybody knows that. But a man who keeps his lawn keeps something. And a street where the lawns are kept is a street where people still believe that things should be done well even when there is no reward for doing them well and no punishment for letting them go. That is not nothing. In a time when much is being lost that is not nothing at all. I will mow again on Saturday.