Final Leaf Collection Later This Week

In this part of Maryland, homeowners have raked and blown leaves from their lawns into giant piles by the side of the road to be collected by the county government.

                      Final Leaf Collection Later This Week              

                  The brown leaf piles lie like burial mounds,

                  like time-worn mountains, like sand

                  dunes standing sentinel along the curbside

                  shore of a slender asphalt sea, a rising

                  river, a cracked and patched canal.

                  Or like light umber waves ready to break

                  upon a tarmac strand as one side’s

                  ebb is always another’s flow, depending

                  on which way the cold winds blow.