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