Mountain Interval/Pea Brush

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.

The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
 * Was hot enough for the first of May,

And stifling hot with the odor of sap
 * From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
 * Wherever the ground was low and wet,

The minute they heard my step went still
 * To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
 * All fresh and sound from the recent axe.

Time someone came with cart and pair
 * And got them off the wild flower’s backs.

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.

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.