Fallen Leaves

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Fallen Leaves

By Jane Tawel

October 3, 2025

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Falling leaves…

How we complain

The work to gather them

with rake or glove- ed hands.

Why not let them lie in peace?

And let the winter storms

cover or disperse them, as they will?

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I remember times of joy

in making piles of leaves.

When the boy and girl

would come and mess the piles

by jumping into mountains

flattening them to plains

that tiny hands and feet could tread with ease.

I remember times of laugher,

as all my gathered, hard-worked piles

would be the brightly colored ammunition

of flinging, flying, softly crackling leaves.

What an arsenal of happy thoughts,

could be a pile of leaves.

We held the leaves like fluttering birds

No longer leaves imprisoned in a cage of tree or bin,