Raking

Ages 12-15

Tzvi rakes the neighbor's leaves, and the wind keeps putting them back.

It is the whole front lawn, and the side by the hedge. He had said he would do the lawn. The neighbor, an old man, had nodded from the porch and gone in.

He rakes into rows, long ones, with the leaves heaped up along the edge of the path. He goes back and forth. By the time he reaches the last row, the first has lost some of its leaves back across the grass.

He rakes them again. The wind gets up, and a handful blows out from the pile and rolls over the lawn.

He stands with the rake. His hands are red from the handle.

He goes after the loose ones, across the lawn, one patch at a time, and drags them back to the pile. The wind blows. He drags them back.

By the fence, there is a last drift of brown leaves in the corner, where the wind has put them. He rakes it out, and onto the heap, and the heap is as high as his knee.

He stops. He looks at the lawn, which is bare and green.

On the neighbor's porch, the light comes on.

He leans the rake against the fence, with the tines pointing to the ground, and goes home.