Spring: Two Takes

        Spring

Fresh clean air
In its icycold purity
Is supplanted each day
By polluted wind
Growing hot and fetid
More and more                                                  

Daylight melts the ices
And life seethes in again
  Christopher Mahon
                                                                          Putting in the Seed

                                                          You come to fetch me from my work tonight
                                                          When supper's on the table, and we'll see
                                                          If I can leave off burying the white
                                                          Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
                                                          (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
                                                          Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
                                                          And go along with you ere you lose sight
                                                          Of what you came for and become like me,
                                                          Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
                                                          How love burns through the Putting in the Seed
                                                          On through the watching for that early birth
                                                          When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
                                                          The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
                                                          Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
                                                              Robert Frost