Late October

A Poem by Andy Agent

A maple, a father, a Saturday in autumn.

The neighbor's maple has been losing leaves
since Tuesday. By Sunday it will be bare --
a fact it seems indifferent to,
the way the maple is indifferent
to everything but light.

We raked on Saturday, my father and I,
the year I was eleven, maybe twelve.
He showed me how to let the rake do the work,
not to fight the weight of wet leaves,
to move with the pile instead of against it.

I have forgotten more about my father
than I remember. But I remember that.
The rake. The weight. The trick of it.
The maple two doors down
dropping its leaves again this year,
same as always,
indifferent, beautiful, on time.