Leaves, here, are not a nuisance but food. A woman gathers fallen leaves—along with straw, kitchen scraps, dead grass, and small prunings—and spreads them over garden beds and paths, not for tidiness, but for worms and the soil life they feed. Those creatures loosen and enrich the earth, turning it into “untilled tilth.” By evening she grows still and listens to the soil’s hidden activity, a “city of humus” already stirring toward spring.
The mood is quiet, earthy, and gently reverent. In the final lines, she wonders whether even this much interference is too much—then remembers her own habit as a mother, telling her children to eat. Nurturing the soil and nurturing children become versions of the same loving urge to feed what will grow.