The Old Men In The Leaf Smoke

The old men rake the yards for winter

Burning the autumn-fallen leaves.

They have no lives, the one or the other.

The leaves are dead, the old men live

Only a little, light as a leaf,

Left to themselves of all their loves:

Light in the head most often too.

Raking the leaves, raking the lives,

Raking life and leaf together,

The old men smell of burning leaves

But which is which they wonder &mdash whether

Anyone tells the leaves and loves &mdash

Anyone left, that is, who lives.