Sweeping

Walking home from work, one windy autumn eve I noticed some workmen sweeping up leaves, The more leaves they swept, the more the wind blew So I stopped to watch for a moment or two One man swept the leaves into piles on the street But the wind would sweep them from under his feet, Another put the leaves into sacks that he had I thought the whole scene was comically sad Mother Nature had worked hard, for most of the year Producing the leaves on the trees for us to share Now they were being swept away without a care As the wind blew the leaves away again, I was glad. Perhaps the wind was Mother Nature’s only way of fighting back She didn’t want to be reduced to life within a sack To go from splendour, to squalor, in the space of just one season She wasn’t going to disappear, not without good reason The wind blew again, with all of its might That’s when the workmen gave up for the night As they packed their tools and left the scene, I carried on for home The wind began to die away; Mother Nature’s fight was won.