Already — listen! — can you hear the ring
of harrows at their work this almost-spring?
Men once more beat a rhythm on the earth,
from whose reserves of patient, silent strength

a future opens, cleansed: a world you’ve known
so many times before, revealed as new.
The change you’ve longed for you will never own;
the change has taken ownership of you.

Even the old year’s dead brown oak leaves shine
this evening with the coming season’s hopes.
The breezes now and then exchange a sign.

Black hedges. And a richer black in heaps
of dung dumped on the fields. The waking year
regains its youth with every passing hour.