Sixteen trees in our yard
have turned in silence
yellow, then green, then orange and red
greeting, growing, then sleeping
season after season.

And now once more
save the single live oak
they have laid their canopies
brown over the ground.

---

And as if on cue
Honey for the third time
her plaintive refrain:
What are you going to do
about all the leaves?
Again I say, I’m waiting out
the fall till the trees are done.

Believing the weather channel,
tomorrow’s blowing in
with our first winter storm.

For one last time this year
I’ve garnered enough gumption
to don my holiest jeans
and crummiest long sleeves.

I approach the garage.
A last ditch argument:
Should I open the door
to the array of mean machines
ready to consume
the precious dwindling volume
of gasoline on the planet?
Then I remember my wife
and imagine the predicted snow.

With two hearty cranks
the Toro roars to life.

And here I sit in the garden room
the next morning, muscles sore,
viewing with pride
the still green St. Augustine
recalling row after leafy row
disappearing into the jaws
of the marvelous
miraculous mulching mower.

12/08/2008

Posted on 12/08/2008
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