A fitting poem. . .

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

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.

Nate Note

Great lives, like nature's gold, all eventually pass away. Greatness by virtue, is the hardest hue to hold. May we each take our turn and pass as we must. . .as nature's gold.

Sand Dunes

Sand Dunes

by Robert Frost

Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.

Nate Notes

I have many fond memories of trips to the sand dunes with my family and as a scout.

Suitable title for today's poem

Ghost House

by Robert Frost

I Dwell in a lonely house I know 
That vanished many a summer ago, 
And left no trace but the cellar walls, 
And a cellar in which the daylight falls, 
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 

O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield 
The woods come back to the mowing field; 
The orchard tree has grown one copse 
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops; 
The footpath down to the well is healed. 

I dwell with a strangely aching heart 
In that vanished abode there far apart 
On that disused and forgotten road 
That has no dust-bath now for the toad. 
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; 

The whippoorwill is coming to shout 
And hush and cluck and flutter about: 
I hear him begin far enough away 
Full many a time to say his say 
Before he arrives to say it out. 

It is under the small, dim, summer star. 
I know not who these mute folk are 
Who share the unlit place with me-- 
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree 
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. 

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, 
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,-- 
With none among them that ever sings, 
And yet, in view of how many things, 
As sweet companions as might be had.

Grasping. . .

A Passing Glimpse
by Robert Frost

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

Nate Note

Truly there are the sublime moments where we catch the fleeting glimpse in the motion of life. But how often are those moments passing because of our hustle, our decisions, our cynicism, and our self denial? How often is heaven, love, happiness within our view and we pass by. . .?

One could do worse. . .

Birches
by Robert Frost



When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that.
Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping.
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Nate Notes

Where would I begin. . . read it several more times. . .let it settle on your soul. . .

Today's News. . .Tomorrow Forgotten

A Patch of Old Snow

by Robert Frost

There's a patch of old snow in a corner

That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if

Small print overspread it,

The news of a day

I've forgotten --If I ever read it.

Nate Notes

In our age of minute meals, 24 hour news, and sound bites; this poem is a reminder that crisis causing news of the minute is forgotten tomorrow. All the media hype which shakes markets and promotes doom is nothing more than an old patch of snow. . .

Old Frost on the Fully Bloomed. . .

No, your calendars are not off - it is Monday and not Friday. I normally do Frost on Friday but this is a special occasion. My sister sent me a very classy collection of RF's works. If you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of Robert Frost's work.

In addition to my posts on his poetry, I read him almost daily. I love to quote him often. I have used his works when I facilitate trainings at my work. I can usually find an appropriately Frosty poem for every occasion, an example his panoramic observation of Nature and Nature's greatest (and follied) creation.

My idea of a perfect morning includes sitting out on my back lawn with my feet damp and deep in dew drenched grass with a hot cocoa and my volume of Frost.

Thanks sis, the thoughtful gift of a thoughtful poet.

PS - There should be Frost everyday of the year. . .

Made aware. . .

The Silken Tent

by Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when the sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To every thing on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

Nate Notes

This is one of Mr. Frost's lesser know pieces, yet in my opinion, one of his most profound. Like most of his other poems there is no condoning or condemnation, just observation. This poem is about interconnectedness. For a fascinating exercise, consider the relationships depicted in this piece from the vantage point of each element; the silken tent, the cedar pole, the summer air. Then compare this with human nature. . . how many of us at the pinnacle of our surety of soul are only aware of our interconnectedness when a capricious summer air pulls one of our chords taught?

Ditto. . .

Into My Own
By Robert Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,

Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Turn the poet out of doors. . .

To the Thawing Wind
by Robert Frost

Come with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

Nate Notes

This poem is really about Spring but my thawing wind comes in Autumn. I pass on spring and all the allergies, I shun and shade myself from the suffocating heat of summer, but autumn calls me out to my loved and native element. This waning season has become my favorite for so many reasons. Like the harvest itself, all things become ripe and vibrant to the senses. I love the all the sights, not only in the forest and fauna but on the people as well, all the rich colors and earth tones loosely draped on branches and beings alike. I love the crisp clarity that comes with the cooling air and in each breath. I love the rich pungent scent of things returning to the earth. I love the crackle of leaves under foot and the cheers of children diving into collected heaps of Nature's cotton candy. I love the chill on my face, the wind playfully tossing my short hair and the cozy warmth that only comes from a well loved sweater or hoodie. I love lazy drives through the winding panorama of color covered canyons in a convertible with inspiring instrumentals providing the soundtrack.

I often stand at my office window watching for the first signs of turning. I am waiting, wishing for my thawing wind to turn me out. . .

Love vs. Thought

Bond and Free

by Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turn, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to beBut Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrallAnd simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star

You only fail if you stop trying. . .

Fireflies in the Garden

by Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,

And here on earth come emulating flies,

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Nate Note

For me this poem is about striving to emulate the stars. At moments we have a brilliant start, then all too often we fall short. Though we struggle to sustain the part, this should not keep us from trying again. As someone dear to me always says, "You only fail if you stop trying."

Walls to break down

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Nate Notes

The new wisdom of breaking down walls challenges the conventional wisdom of "good fences make good neighbors." True wisdom lies in discerning which boundaries to respect and which boundaries to reach across to bridge a divide.

The best investment. . .

The Investment

by Robert Frost

Over back where they speak of life as staying

('You couldn't call it living, for it ain't'),

There was an old, old house renewed with paint,

And in it a piano loudly playing.

Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,

Among unearthed potatoes standing still,

Was counting winter dinners, one a hill,

With half an ear to the piano's vigor.

All that piano and new paint back there,

Was it some money suddenly come into?

Or some extravagance young love had been to?

Or old love on an impulse not to care--

Not to sink under being man and wife,

But get some color and music out of life?

Nate Notes

Franks Lloyd Wright said, "Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."

I am not encouraging fiscal recklessness. I am saying that a little luxury here and there can breathe some needed joy in life. A luxury doesn't always have to be expensive either, rather it should be well chosen.

Abundance to you and yours throughout your life. . .

Frosty thoughts from Frost

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost



Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction iceIs also great
And would suffice.

Nate Notes

If not the world...how shall my own life pass? With fire or ice?

TGIF

A Time to Talk

by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Nate Notes

We will drop our labors for a friend when they visit but how often do we look over our labor undone and call out "What is it?!" to our wives and children?

Happy 4th with Frost

The Gift Outright

by Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she will become.

Nate Note

After the applause, Kennedy welcomed to the podium one of America's great poets, fellow New Englander Robert Frost. Frost had written a poem for the occasion of Kennedy's Inauguration called "Dedication." He approached the microphone, but blinded by the sun's glare on the snow-covered Capitol grounds, he was unable to read it. Thinking quickly, he instead recited "The Gift Outright," a poem he had written in 1942.

Catching up. . .

Hey All,

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have been out of town and then playing catch up at work when I got back. This will be the Friday with Frost for June 20, 2008.

A Prayer In Spring
by Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Nate Notes

I love this poem primarily for the last stanza. God's greatest manifestation of love is that He created us, to sanctify His bountious creations, by us having joy therein.

To Robert Frost's A Prayer in Spring I say, Amen.

... a fitting selection

Here is my Friday with Frost for June 27th.


The Bear
by Robert Frost


The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its chokecherries lips to kiss good-by,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage,
That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests

The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat,
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety-odd degrees of arc,
it seems,Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut
(He almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.


Nate Note

A fitting poem after some recent posts.

A lover's quarrel

I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own,
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Nate Note

An oft quoted line of Frost, it ranks with Henry David Thoreau's "The mass of men lead lives of quite desperation." in popularity and profundity. This bit of verse was penned as part of a larger poem entitled The lesson for today just before his death in 1963. The brilliance is how he summarizes the sometimes bitter but mostly passionate nature of life. . . a lover's quarrel. With accurate balance it portrays the reality of life's difficulties and what should be our full bodied, experiential embrace of the mortal experience.

So go! Have your lover's quarrel with the world!