pasture chores: poetry

I don't know what picture I had in my mind when I learned this poem in grammar school, but I'm grateful for the words now as I climb the back of Walton Hill to clear the intake for the guest house spring:

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring.

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(and wait to watch the water clear, I may).

I sha'n't be gone long. You come, too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

that's standing by its mother. It's so young

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long; you come, too.

I find I'm often grateful to Mr. Frost for his sensitive observation of rural life, for words that reveal the oneness of farmer and farm.