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Spring Raking by Jeanne C. Howes in Connecticut If you've only raked in October when the leaves are bright air light balloons that float and snap in party-colored mood wind-mounted on a carousel, when blade-crisp air is gemmed with grapes, lacy with smoke and smoldering gold of sparks before the frosty night comes down, come out and get the feel of waking earth; come out and rake at clean-up time in spring. Tug at the wooden handle, feel the weight of the winter-packaged leaves pressed down and folded, stuffed between the crevices of rock and packed beneath ledge and broken boughs, layered flat in soggy sheets of brown in earthy shades, tobacco, mocha, bronze, and leather scraps, discarded oak leaf shapes designing sandal patterns for a band of gnomes. Rumple the heavy blankets up between green velvet moss and mushroom caps, turn back the dank dull undersheets of mold's rich moist decay, the nourisher of life. Thin April sun and sherbet flavored air, the smell of snuffy spice brown leaves and rank skunk cabbage. Redwings and robins on the hill, fungus on a rotting branch, new leaves of tough pipsissewas, new sprouting tips of daffodils in clumps among trees. Push off the piles of long forgotten leaves, expose the dark wet stains where they have lain, scratch up the soil and stir the life within.
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