A friend who is creating a pollinator meadow in her home brought my attention to the April 3, 2022 article in the New York Times about a movement in Appleton, Wisconsin, begun two years ago, now is becoming nationwide. It is called, “No-Mow May.” By chance this week I saw two minutes of a local news broadcast, and the lead story was the adoption of “No-Mow May” by households in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina.

After only two years, the data is very encouraging. This small practice of restraint is allowing the increased health, diversity, and vigor of that workhorse pollinator, bees. This kind of news is the kind we need in April on Earth Day–one simple but powerful step that all of us can consider taking right now and in the sweet spring days ahead. My poem today (“No-Mow May”) is a mediation of this set of ideas and actions. The photographs above come from the warmer April of 2017. The ones below from our chilly house and garden here in 2022.