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| I WALKED down alone Sunday after church | |
| To the place where John has been cutting trees | |
| To see for myself about the birch | |
| He said I could have to bush my peas. | |
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| The sun in the new-cut narrow gap | 5 |
| Was hot enough for the first of May, | |
| And stifling hot with the odor of sap | |
| From stumps still bleeding their life away. | |
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| The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill | |
| Wherever the ground was low and wet, | 10 |
| The minute they heard my step went still | |
| To watch me and see what I came to get. | |
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| Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!— | |
| All fresh and sound from the recent axe. | |
| Time someone came with cart and pair | 15 |
| And got them off the wild flower’s backs. | |
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| They might be good for garden things | |
| To curl a little finger round, | |
| The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings, | |
| And lift themselves up off the ground. | 20 |
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| Small good to anything growing wild, | |
| They were crooking many a trillium | |
| That had budded before the boughs were piled | |
| And since it was coming up had to come. | |
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