Loose Leaves
I wade through a sea of leaves on my daily walk to the mailbox. Most people rake leaves this time of year, but there’s no point in doing that in my sprawling yard, where their presence is like an endless incoming tide. By spring most of them will have decomposed and be reduced down to only about half a dozen wheelbarrows full. They collect around my flower gardens, and I have to rake then if I want to enjoy my daffodils and crocus.
I find myself collecting leaves in October like I collect shells when I’m walking on the beach. Wanting to preserve their beauty, I press them in my large red American Heritage dictionary. I have big ideas of what to do with them next, but my ideas never seems to materialize. Some leaves have been in my dictionary for many years, so that when I look up a word, pieces fly out or crumple into dried confetti. Sometimes a faded green shamrock from Ireland or a purple wildflower, collected while hiking on the Parkway, will spill out onto my burnt orange living room carpet and tell a story of a day already lived.
Eulogy for Falling Leaves
Some die of natural causes
They drift to the ground and close their eyes
Leaving their perfectly unmarked bodies
scattered like photographs of my ancestors
I collect the ones that look familiar
I write their obituaries and bury them in books
Or I lay them out on the kitchen table
like old lace doilies at an open casket wake
Soon they will fade and crumble to dust
Some are skeletons already
Some have been eaten like the red wool hat
that I left in my pantry all summer
Others I suspect have leapt to their death
the way people jump off the Brooklyn Bridge
They land like broken-hearted sunsets
that absent-minded people later walk on
The sassafras leaves look like ragged mittens
curled up from sitting at the woodstove too long
I match them in pairs, save them for winter
or remember them in a nursery rhyme
Soon there are leaves all over
Maple, poplar, dogwood and oak
transforming into compost for future generations
in bonfire piles of light going out
October 25th, 2005 9:55 am
Hello! Michelle sent me. What a fantastic picture. I love those quasi-abstract yet not shots. 😉 We tend to organize our leaf piles just long enough for the kids to leap in them. Then we haul them into less organized piles in my garden.
October 25th, 2005 11:54 am
Tuesday Schtuff
Just a quick recap of recent goings-on in my life:
There are new entries in the Pumpkin Carving Contest. View them HERE. They’re cool! Hey! Where’s YOURS?!
Thousands of people are looking for cool, wicked, animal, and even custom pum…
October 25th, 2005 2:02 pm
I love to walk in places(like your yard)where the path is a carpet of leaves. I love to lift them as I walk and hear the crunch and smell the pungent aroma of fall.
Your poetry is lovely.
October 25th, 2005 2:35 pm
“Others I suspect have leapt to their death
the way people jump off the Brooklyn Bridge
They land like broken-hearted sunsets
that absent-minded people later walk on”
I love this paragraph, Colleen!
October 25th, 2005 2:49 pm
i love the carpet of leaves that we get in the fall…we don’t rake them either!
October 25th, 2005 5:51 pm
Another good poetry stop. Who needs to go to the library?
October 25th, 2005 11:04 pm
Lovely!
October 26th, 2005 1:20 am
A lovely poem. I love the leaves, don’t care much for the pine needles or cones, but the leaves are gorgeous.
October 26th, 2005 9:58 am
Hello, Michele sent me.
What a lovely post, Colleen! Your writing is very soothing and relaxing. Like a soft blanket and a steamy mug of tea.
October 26th, 2005 6:00 pm
Oh yes! JUST like a steamy mug of tea. Wonderfully stated coolbeans.
We used to collect leaves and chestnuts when we were kids. We used the chestnuts to make “soup” (pretend) for our dolls when we got home. The leaves were carefully pressed between two pieces of waxed paper. Then they were carefully placed in our china closet alongside the fine ware. Then they mysteriously disappeared as we all got older and moved out of the house – in other words, mom slipped them into the trash after she got tired of shifting them around for weeks on end. 🙂
Thanks for the memories!
October 26th, 2005 7:22 pm
A wonderful poem-descriptive, flowing, memorable
You have a gift. Thanks for sharing. I’ve always loved the autumn colors and the leaves that blaze so brilliantly before they die.
October 27th, 2005 10:06 pm
Beautiful post and poem. A few days ago the wind carried the leaves like birds.