The leaves have been turning for a few weeks now, and my yard is fairly well full of leaves just eagerly waiting for someone to pick them up. I do love fall, but the whole “leaf raking” process is something I’m not incredibly fond of. Perhaps instead of viewing it as a difficult task, I instead need to look at the poetic side of this event like Robert Frost does in Gathering Leaves.

Gathering Leaves #

by Robert Frost #

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?