Works and Days

By: Charles Giuliano - Nov 15, 2020

 

Works and Days

With an ancient broom
Still useful
Despite long service
Brushing an errant leaf
Off the garden platform
Now in its second year
Below sloping hill
Cleared of rubble
Now planted
Hardy perennials
Cluster of bamboo
Slim persimmon
Promise of fruit
Reward of patience
Our weekly conversation
Masked and distanced
Part of the lesson
Holding up the sky
Turned to leaves
Tons of them
From swamp maples
Surrounding
Simple calculations
Some 65-years-old
How many leaves
On average
Give or take
Then younger ones
Great mounds of them
Gathered in piles
Raked and swept
Into a trash barrel
Hauled up the hill
There piled up
Awaiting winter snow
Wet and compressed
Mulched by spring
Worked into soil
Rhythm of seasons
Ebb and flow
Measuring time
Through works and days
As Hesiod would say
Add little to little
Soon little becomes great
Some half million leaves
By his calculation
Several more floating
From tree to deck
Soon dispatched
Rhythmic task
The joy of it
Song of Milarepa
Tunnel through a mountain
Shovel by shovel
From days to years
I need nothing, I seek nothing, I desire nothing
Light at the other side
Not at the end
But in the doing
Moving a million leaves
One by one
Until it’s done