The Mower

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," written 12 June 1979. First published in Humberside, the magazine of the Hull Literary Club, Autumn 1979. Collected in Collected Poems (Faber and Faber, 1988). Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reproduced here for personal, non-commercial reflection.