Of stars, I say nothing: this earth
is all that concerns me. Spring is fickle ?
she will come when it suits her.
Watch the nearer skies, that when the wind changes
you feel it and know. When soil is warm and soft rains fall,
when the plover nests, when trees like antlers bud,
when calves come forth and rivers melt ? plant then.
To forgive: plant with your hands. May the earth
forgive too, for you have not yet learned
to make the corn grow. I say nothing of stars.
Yet what good are the dead, even to the gods?
An apple drops like a child and we gather them up
in ignorance almost equal to the occasion,
as if stars had fallen in our fields since the first.