The Old Men In The Leaf Smoke
Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)
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 - whether
Anyone tells the leaves and loves -
Anyone left, that is, who lives.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 27 sec read
- 458 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABACDEFGABAEG |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 466 |
Words | 91 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 13 |
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"The Old Men In The Leaf Smoke" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/3765/the-old-men-in-the-leaf-smoke>.
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