Ever notice how gracefully the wind sweeps through a field of tall grass? This morning it’s as though some invisible, playful creature is gamboling through the field, its path so easily seen and yet so wonderfully random, impossible to track. I’ve fallen in love with it; I could watch it forever, it seems, but I must go to work.

I’m talking grass with arching blades and seed heads nodding, the rhythm of nature loving an unmown expanse, not the cropped and manicured lawns of suburbia. There’s no evidence of wind in those shorn locks; they’re sterile; shell-shocked by the mower’s assault.

We’ve just planted grass around our new home and I’m doing my best to figure out how to let it grow and stretch in the wind for as long as possible – all summer if I have my way. Indeed, if I can figure out how to exchange a lawn for an official wildflower meadow garden, tall grass fescue mixed liberally with prairie flowers, I’ll do it. It would mean no mowing but, more importantly, it would mean nature wins one battle against the unnatural human construct of “lawn.”

As I stand here by the back door watching invisible creatures skipping and swooping through unmown grass, I’m grateful … for the awesome beauty of nature, and for the chance to flout suburban lawn rules for a while.