National Poetry Month: Day 15, a Day Late

This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.

--Philip Larkin

National Poetry Month: Day 16, a Dollar Short

When I said that Mercy
stood
Within the borders of the
wood,
I meant the lenient beast
with claws
And bloody, swift-dispatching
jaws.

-- Lawrence Spingarn