RECITE AND ANALYSE Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass by Simon Armitage

 Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass

It seemed an unlikely match. All winter unplugged,

grinding its teeth in a plastic sleeve, the chainsaw swung

nose-down from a hook in the darkroom

under the hatch in the floor. When offered the can

it knocked back a quarter-pint of engine oil

and juices ran from its joints and threads,

oozed across the guide-bar and the maker’s name,

into the dry links.

From the summerhouse, still holding one last gulp

of last year’s heat behind its double doors, and hung

with the weightless wreckage of wasps and flies,

mothballed in spider’s wool . . .

from there, I trailed the day-glo orange power line

the length of the lawn and the garden path,

fed it out like powder from a keg, then walked

back to the socket and flicked the switch, then walked again

and coupled the saw to the flex – clipped them together.

Then dropped the safety catch and gunned the trigger.

No gearing up or getting to speed, just an instant rage,

the rush of metal lashing out at air, connected to the mains.

The chainsaw with its perfect disregard, its mood

to tangle with cloth, or jewellery, or hair.

The chainsaw with its bloody desire, its sweet tooth

for the flesh of the face and the bones underneath,

its grand plan to kick back against nail or knot

and rear up into the brain.

I let it flare, lifted it into the sun

and felt the hundred beats per second drumming in its heart,

and felt the drive-wheel gargle in its throat.

The pampas grass with its ludicrous feathers

and plumes. The pampas grass, taking the warmth and light

from cuttings and bulbs, sunning itself,

stealing the show with its footstools, cushions and tufts

and its twelve-foot spears.

This was the sledgehammer taken to crack the nut.

Probably all that was needed here was a good pull or shove

or a pitchfork to lever it out at its base.

Overkill. I touched the blur of the blade

against the nearmost tip of a reed – it didn’t exist.

I dabbed at a stalk that swooned, docked a couple of heads,

dismissed the top third of its canes with a sideways sweep

at shoulder height – this was a game.

I lifted the fringe of undergrowth, carved at the trunk –

plant-juice spat from the pipes and tubes

and dust flew out as I ripped into pockets of dark, secret warmth.

To clear a space to work

I raked whatever was severed or felled or torn

towards the dead zone under the outhouse wall, to be fired.

Then cut and raked, cut and raked, till what was left

was a flat stump the size of a barrel lid

that wouldn’t be dug with a spade or prised from the earth.

Wanting to finish things off I took up the saw

and drove it vertically downwards into the upper roots,

but the blade became choked with soil or fouled with weeds,

or what was sliced or split somehow closed and mended behind,

like cutting at water or air with a knife.

I poured barbecue fluid into the patch

and threw in a match – it flamed for a minute, smoked

for a minute more, and went out. I left it at that