Nature's First Green is Opportunity

We're all familiar with this one..

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Nature’s first green is gold,

 Her hardest hue to hold. 

 Her early leaf’s a flower; 

 But only so an hour. 

 Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

 So Eden sank to grief, 

 So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

But, maybe you don't know or follow this blog...

Nothing Gold by Mary Lee Hahn from A Year of Reading blog
after Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold
or, in the case of that bush,
with its six inches of new growth,
red.

Or, in the case of that forsythia
on the south-facing side of the house,
an unbelievable shade of bright
yellow.

Or, in the case of those new shoots
knifing up from exposed iris bulbs,
a simultaneously fragile but violent
green.

All these early hues
in leaf, in flower
hard to hold as the earth moves
along its path
hour by hour
by day by day
by season by season,

not so much subsiding
as being subsumed
in the golden Eden
of Life.

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I adored this when I read it in my inbox today and have reread it several times since.  I've spent many hours over the past few days (including today) cleaning out beds, disposing of dried up leaves, and uncovering tiny sprouting plants.  I know I can't steal a slice and call it my own, but I want to.  

It captures my thoughts on the passing of time and how the new life around me seems to bring new life to me.  I can't imitate either of these poems today.  I want to spend time on the porch before the sun goes down and I don't have much more to say... the piece is so beautiful to me.  It says what I want to say.  I do invite you to finish the line.  It seems like a fun way to start spring.

Nature's first green is...