Raking autumn leaves
the color of sea stars
mottled on moist ground

I watch them fall
spinning slowly through blue sky
as if the breeze was a tide
ebbing and rising

the rake feels like a paintbrush
collecting color
muddied by mixing
into a fall palette

a still life with fruit
pears and apples still unblemished
on branch attached
but mushy and vinegar smelling

our big white Pyr
helps herself to fallen fruit
laying claim to each orb
her huge paws on either side
moist nose buried
in the rust of the Bosch
the red of the Delicious

we fill a wheelbarrow of leaf draped fruit
to bring below for coyotes
we trap on camera
motion sensed
but motionless

Malama the Pyr
waits whining wondering
if our chill morn together has ended
but the leaves are piles of the fallen
our task is not yet done

more are gathered on tarp
and dragged to garden bed
to blanket wintersleep of bulb and tuber
to feed in their decay
the new blooms of a next spring day

I have always raked
far preferring the quiet metal combing
through grassy tangled tufts
over motored loud blower’s hum
sending Moore's leaves whirling skyward

but I am no longer  tempted
to jump in the pile
gathering armfuls whose yellow color
is a child's crayon sun
and toss them for a second fall

no longer are they bagged  
in thick black plastic to wait
decomposition amongst the landfill’s
less pastoral refuse

nor are they burned
sending acrid leaf spirit smoke
into the cold pale blue
of October afternoon

now their raking is not a ridding
a discarding of what was season’s decoration
soon useless brown
but more of a farewell
a leaving of the light

an offering of what is still of use
in the aged for what will be
a period of cold and dark
and winter's rest
before the next season of green
begins