Boris Pasternak

MARCH
.
The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath;
The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below
Spring -that corn-fed, husky milkmaid-
Is busy at her chores with never a letup.
.
The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia-
See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?)
Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming,
And the lines of pitchforks simply glow with health.
.
These days--these days and these nights also,
With eavesdrop thrumming its tattoos at noon,
With icicles (cachectic) hanging onto gables,
And with the chattering of rills that never sleep!
.
All doors are flung open- in stable and cowbarn;
Pigeons peck at oats fallen in the snow,
And the culprit of all this and its life-begetter -
The pile of manure- is pungent with ozone.