ALL HALLOWS DAY
Prizefighters, the trees, muscular and bare-
Chested, have shrugged off florescent
Dressing gowns, ready to go
Six rounds with winter, that old
Title holder. It’s the first of November.
We are out to resurrect the leaves,
Give them a new start on life
In compost piles where they will steam,
Reduce themselves to a stew chewed by hearty
Worms into a meal fit for the delicate
White fingers of April radishes.
Harvesting leaves is not like tugging out
Rocks or cutting clusters of grapes.
With wide-spread arms we hug
The feathery mounds, we press them down
Into the cart. My husband tramples them underfoot
Like hay in the barn loft, he recalls,
Dust floating up and people sneezing.
Chickadees complain. Gray squirrels
Brandish their tails. A jay keeps his distance.
Under the clouds a focal flock of geese
Shift lanes, honking for the right-of-way,
Ignored by a pair of hang-gliding hawks.
Radical tamarack candles flame
Among conservative pines and cedars,
Electing to cast all their needles off
In one annual fling rather
Than pluck them out a few at a time.
At noontime we pause. I cut pink
And maroon chrysanthemums for the table.
Bumblebees fasten themselves like pins
On the yellow stamen. I flick them off.
But that evening on the kitchen counter
A microscopic neon emerald bee-like
Creature glints on a pastel petal.
(Reutemann Road Poems, 1960-1972)
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