Robert Frost "Pea Brush"

I came across this Robert Frost poem when I was Googling pictures of pea supports.

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.

***

Trillium is a wildflower in the lily family. Here is a photo from Wikipedia:

You can imagine them climbing the fallen birch boughs that were piled on their backs and crooking them.

I love the line,
"They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,"

That's exactly what the peas are doing to my trellis of twigs.

Peas and spinach-mustard went into the ground earlier this week.

And we spent all day Saturday building two more raised beds for vegetables. I double-dug the ground, D built the beds.

We filled them with good soil and compost.

Next to the peas, I seeded some arugula, French breakfast radishes and mesclun. My neighbor came out to tell me it was too cold for anything but peas and spinach--definitely no seeds. She was kind not to laugh at my version of pea brush. We didn't have any birch boughs "fresh and sound from the woodman's axe."