Trash in the Garden

I've gotten complacent, I just let it sit like fallen leaves. Unless its a telephone book or newspaper circular flattening some bulb shoots or something of that nature. I used to clean it up regularly, but now only so often. It keeps coming, never ceases no matter the season. But its in winter that I let it be the longest. It mostly blows in (infernal wind!), but I can tell a tossed bottle of beer or drug baggy from the blown trash. Bottles are more common in warm weather.

I live on a short, little-respected block. Two buildings on it, mine and the neighbor's. The neighbor's fronts the intersecting block so that the side of their house becomes a no-man's land of mostly dog-shit, no fault of their own. The opposite corner, mine, stands without entry or sentry and becomes a good place to toss bottles. But the whole garden fills up. I am reminded of Jonathan Letham's Fortress of Solitude:

"A fair question, actually. Did the renovators think this was Park Slope? Or what? Why should Dose have to carry them? Abraham and Dylan was one thing, but some of those brownstoners, David Upfeld, Isabel Vendle, the Roths, wouldn't look him or Junior in the eye, seemed to begrudge their place on the street. Upfield, out there each day in his Red Sox cap and handlebar mustache, picking litter from his yard. Glaring at PRs on crates in front of Ramirez's store, like they were ever going to quit tossing bottle caps and empty packets of plaintain chips in his forsythia."

pg. 461

Something else entirely? I dunno. I've gotten accustomed to the winter flower, the bleached colors of clinging trash. In the front yard, you gotta be cool. Or lazy.