Putting in the Seed
Putting in the Seed - form Summary
A Sonnet of Domestic Labor
This poem is cast as a sonnet but uses that compressed form to hold a small domestic scene and a larger metaphor. Addressed in plain, conversational lines, the speaker is torn between household duty and tending the garden; the sonnet’s tight span concentrates the tension and the turn where personal desire and agricultural imagery merge. The poem compresses temporal scales—the immediate supper moment and the patient season of growth—so the sonnet’s economy highlights how love and labor intertwine in rural life.
Read Complete AnalysesYou come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea); And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
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