One day, we killed a snake with the lawnmower. It was a big deal for me. (I wrote about it here. ) I wasn’t able to throw it off easily – you know, collateral damage for a lovely lawn. That just didn’t jive. So when I discovered this poem, a few weeks ago, it snagged, and the last line echoed over and over.

The Mower

BY PHILIP LARKIN

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin, “The Mower” from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of

Philip Larkin.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)