"So he won. The nation takes a deep breath….We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure.”
Raking the Leaves
Tuesday
I left the leaves for later, now
it’s
Wednesday and later’s here. It’s here
like none of the pundits predicted, unless
you mean Aeschylus,
famous for his tragedies,
who
told us we would know the future
when
it came – until then, we should forget it.
Today
the future came, banged on the door.
I
didn’t answer, but it came in anyway, so
I went outside to rake leaves from the apple tree,
remembering an oracle predicted a falling object
would kill Aeschylus. For some reason he felt safe
outside, but he died when
an eagle flew over him
and dropped a turtle on
his head. Dropping dead
like that, imagine. Imagine dropping dead at all.
My
imagination goes all wonky when the world
buckles
and shakes. I calm myself with a rake
and make a
pile of leaves. Did I say a pile
of something? I forget what
exactly. And what
was I saying? It's gotten hard to think. Oh, yes,
a pile of leaves, once green, now orange and
dead.
Next up? Nothing to be done but clean the shed.
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| Aeschylus 525-456 B.C. |
Jama Kim Rattigan is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up today at her blog, the wonderful and delicious Alphabet Soup . Head over there to see what people have posted.
