Tuesday, December 24, 2013



Central Maine driving conditions can be seen above. But we managed to arrive at our destination, and now the poodle and I are comfortably making coffee and watching squirrels. My situation is nothing like the situation of the Frost poem that follows. But this was my very first experiential Frost poem at the Frost Place, and I'm feeling sentimental, and a little bit cold.


An Old Man’s Winter Night

Robert Frost

All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping here, he scared it once again
In clomping off—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon—such as she was,
So late-arising—to the broken moon,
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall the keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

2 comments:

Maureen said...

Glad you made it.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, Dawn. Thank you for all your wonderful posts this year.

Dawn Potter said...

And the same to you, Maureen! Thank you for your friendship and your intelligence and your care. XX