October Leaves Falling

Peter Baltensperger

Canadian Authors Association Prize for the best poem in The Harpweaver

First of October today, my wife says,
surveying her garden, the last blooms,
October leaves falling around us,
fallen around us, like snow.
Picks up a rake, puts it down--the futility of it all,
yesterday's pile getting smaller already again,
swirling in the wind.

We should be doing more than this;
consider the fire, the spectacle, the wind.

My father, for instance, taking his camera for a walk,
coming home with the captured colours,
the splendour of the leaves against the late sky,
smells of forests and fields, and I thinking,
there should be more to this than falling,
more to summer.

His wife, mother and life-source of us all, surveying her garden,
always counting the heads, making sure we were all in place,
even as she was getting smaller and smaller,
frail in the October wind;
even as we stood around the grave.

I am here, I said, the hand still on my head,
counting and reassuring. The leaves had all fallen,
the sun winding down from the equinox to the solstice,
the longest and darkest of nights,
and I thinking, there should be more, more;
and the grave silent, falling away into the darkness.

Cats prowling outside, availing themselves of the longer nights;
our cats prowing inside, perturbed.

My wife picks up the rake.
There's work to be done, she says, restoring order to her domain.

If only it were as simple as that.