Philip Larkin: 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" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.

Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)