Lou Suarez

After a Day's Raking

Tonight I will dream about leaves

raked into piles and stuffed

into clear bags, ready to be

trucked somewhere for compost.

Red leaves and orange. Oak, maple,

Ash. Thousands. Billions.

They will not speak since

even in dream they will be

dead, but this will not be a dream

from which I will wake screaming

drenched by sweat. Nor a dream

in which children play,

throwing leaves not yet bagged

into air, making small piles into which

they jump, screeching.

In dreams like this nothing much

happens — the leaves silent

at the tree lawn alongside bags

with wet tissue and catalogs,

empty cereal boxes, dumb

refuse, now here, now departed.