Topiary
by Nancy Sherer

While Mother cut the o're grown foliage
Of the yew next to my door,
I was reminded of the haircuts
She gave in days of yore.

Whack, whack she hacked away the green,
The needles fell thick and fast.
As she flung a branch away,
My mind wandered in the past.

So oft in childhood I had watched,
While other shears she wielded,
Used to cut 'way the growth
My brothers' heads had yielded.

Snip, snip the silken locks would fall
As she cut on the double.
Snip, snip 'til all that r'mained attached
Was short and bristly stubble.

I blinked away misty memories
That had fogged my view
To see how she had finished
The shaping of my yew.

A pile of green surrounded
The shrub now bare and tiny.
I realized that Mother had giv'n
The mighty yew a heinie.