I just walked out the back door.
The knob doesn't work;
you have to wedge it open.

Down the street a train
is thundering down the tracks.

The back yard is half brown, half green.
Right now.
It is always dry by the end of July.
Next June it will explode with life.

It's got a shed in it
for the lawnmower
and for the firewood.
That shed was home
to a rabbit this year.
If I see it again, I'll tell you,
but I'm pretty sure it's moved out now.

There are two tree stumps in our yard.
One is a scrawny brown thing
with several trunks
that all come out of the ground.
I called them trunks because
they look like only one plant.
The other is big and gray.
It sits right under a low power line,
probably the very thing
for which it was chopped.
I almost miss the tree,
though I never saw it.

I like the way the yard looks
whenever we leave the house
for a week away in Washington
in Summer.

The yard grows into a jungle
with all sorts of things living,
verdurous vegetation, a rug of herbs
and many different plants
that stand up to our knees.
We have to mow it all up or we'll get fined.