The poet Frost

Two poems always come to me when I think of the loss of my son. One you may already know the other is much less known and has very little literature written about it. Both poems were written by Robert Frost, and though his poetry is beautiful and much of it touches me it is these two poems that stand out in my mind when I think of my Matthew.

Of course when one thinks of Frost "The Road Not Taken" is always the first to mind. Easily his most famous poem, it does represent a parting of paths that could be associated with death but this is not the poem that come to me. Neither is "Birches" which talks of climbing "toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more" (56) it speaks of purity of snow covered birches which bend and fall from the heavy winter's ice. "Good Hours" is another favorite. To someone who has lost it can be a comfort. Another is the "Mending Wall" which talks of neighbors.

No, none of these are the ones I think of when I think of Matthew. My little baby has but two poems, one speaks of loss the other the loss of innocence.

For those who have seen or read "The Outsiders" this first poem will be familiar.

Nothing Gold Can Stay


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.




This second poem will be unfamiliar, perhaps, even to those who study literature.
Stars

How countlessly they congregate
    O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
    When wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,
    Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
    Invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
    Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
    Without the gift of sight.


Perhaps my little girl will be a swinger of birches. As for her brother he is a little golden star.