Threnody, with Grass and Saṃsāra

When the man who cuts our grass every two 
or three weeks comes by this afternoon, 
he turns off his riding lawn mower 

to chat. I'm not sure what prompts this 
pause for conversation—perhaps the nearly 
100-degree heat, or just because 

whatever's on the brain has a way
of spilling out of the mouth, seeking
a listening. And that's how I come 

to learn about his brother's death. 
There's one in every family: oveja 
negra notoria. You know how it is, 

Joel says. All of us siblings cut 
from the same cloth, and yet one of us 
somehow takes some kind of wrong turn 

and never reaches their full potential.  
And yet this brother, no matter how down 
on luck or perpetually drowned in his cups, 

never lacked for friends. The way Joel 
tells it, even people he met for the first 
time acted almost like they knew him 

from another life. Nearly seven 
hundred people went to my brother's funeral,
says Joel, shaking his head. I've known 

a few people like that too: old souls, 
washing up here again among us after 
having traveled so long. Each time, still 

trying to figure out how to do it—how 
to live this life, how to make amends, 
perhaps do it better next time. Just like

all these plots where grasses grow
back, tall and thick and green, no matter 
how many times the blade mows them down.