Leaves on the lawn

By Richard Lawson

This happens every year
coloured and sculpted to look like frogs
a leaf-plague crawls across the mossy lawn
sometimes by hop and skip, mainly by stealth

blurring the borders
blanketing mournful flower beds,
their plan is simple: cover the earth with mulch,
rot-fragrant brown leaf drifts

repeat each year
to make a fine soft nursery for seedlings
to raise their heads, spread out their arms to greet the sun
and in their turn, drop leaves.

We cannot criticise.
Within our species there are those
who'd clad the earth in death
without a thought.

Between those two extremes
we have to set distinctions.
Grass here, flowers there,
and leaves in shining sacks

to wait three years,
rot down to fibre, to make soil
improvements that I may not see,
if in my turn I go to ground, the land sold on

maybe to be covered yet with concrete death
or reclaimed by the river.
but we must do this work ;
our given role
is to improve our soil and our soul.

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