This should-be-famous poem was written by May Theilgaard Watts, founder of Illinois Prairie Path, the first successful rails-to-trails conversion. Written in the 1920s or 1930s, it describes a process of destroying beautiful native woodlands with lawns — a process that has continued unabated since then.
I can only imagine the grief she felt as she witnessed this destruction.
(Note: I assume this is out of copyright.)
On Improving the Property
by May Theilgaard Watts (1893-1975)
They laid the trilliums low,
And where drifted anemones and wild sweet phlox
Were wont to follow April’s hepaticas —
They planted grass.
There was a corner
That held a tangled copse of hawthorne
And young wild crabs,
Bridal in May above yellow violets,
Purple-twigged in November.
They needed that place for Lombardy poplars
— And grass.
Last June the elderberry was fragrant here.
And in October the viburnum poured its wine
Beneath the moon-yellow wisps of the witch-hazel blossoms.
They piled them in the alley
And made a burnt offering
— To grass.
There was a slope
That a wild grapevine had captured long ago.
At its brink a colony of mandrakes
Held green umbrellas close,
Like a crowd along the path of a parade.
This job almost baffled them,
Showers washed off the seed
And made gullies in the naked clay.
They gritted their teeth,
And planted grass.
At the base of the slope there was a hollow,
So lush with hundreds of years of fallen leaves,
That maiden-hair swirled above the trout-lilies,
And even a few blood-roots
Lifted frosty blossoms there.
Clay from the ravaged slope
Washed down and filled the hollow
With a yellow hump.
They noticed the hump
And planted grass.
There was a linden
That the bees loved.
A smug catalpa has taken its place,
But the wood ashes were used
To fertilize the grass.
People pass by
And say, “Just look at that grass —
Not a weed in it!
It’s like velvet!”
One could say as much
For any other grave.