Ploughing Time

What is the matter with the landscape? Familiar landmarks are not there. Ploughed fields, like squares upon a chessboard, Today are scattered everywhere. The newly-harrowed vast expanses So evenly are spread about, As though the valley had been spring-cleaned Or else the mountains flattened out. And that same day, in one endeavour, Outside the furrows every tree Bursts into leaf, light-green and downy, And stretches skyward, tall and free. No speck of dust on the new maples, And colours nowhere are as clean As is the light-grey of the ploughland And as the silver-birch's green.